Barra and Vatersay
The clouds and wind of a gray Castlebay awaited us when we got off the ferry. Pushing on against the relentless headwind we made our way to Vatersay, a paradise for cows and surfers alike. After a visit to "cow beach" at the southern shore of the island we took some time to find a pitch in the grass on the island's dune isthmus where we were somewhat sheltered from the strong gusts that kept pounding the tent from the west. Our neighbors for the night: a bunch of rabbits that had mined the dunes, riddling it with countless holes.
In the morning the gusts had subsided. Instead, we spotted some patches of blue sky among the clouds. The Met Office was right, the weather was improving significantly.
Distracted by the luxury of the nearby public bathroom -- they even got showers! -- we lost track of time and had only an hour and twenty minutes to reach the ferry to Eriskay. We hit the pedals and thanks to a strong tailwind we made it in just under an hour.
Eriskay and South Uist
The next two islands were rather flat compared to the mainland. Eriskay is just one little hill, then a causeway leads to South Uist. At this point the sky had cleared and we were enjoying an immaculate blue sky with no cloud in sight in any direction. Was this still Scotland? We asked ourselves. GPS says yes, but our senses disagreed.
The roads on South Uist were noticably quieter than on the mainland, quieter even than Mull. Another positive surprise was how considerate the local drivers were, waiting patiently at for us the passing places on those single-track country roads. It's not like there was a lot of traffic to begin with, but the few drivers we encountered all greeted with a hand wave or even gave us a thumbs-up. Combined with strong tailwind this made for a superb cycling experience.
Benbecula and North Uist
The Benbecula campsite where we spent a night is located right next to beach. And what beach that was! White sand extended endlessly in both directions, tall grass dunes caught most of the chilly wind, the sun was still shining bright and hot, and thanks to the shallow bay the clear turquois water was surprisingly warm. At around 20:00 h we had that beach all to ourselves, undisturbed except for a seal that paid us a visit.
Benbecula too was rather flat, as is the southern part of North Uist which we tackled the next day. As the first POI of the day we paid a visit to the Pobull Fhinn stone circle at the southern edge of the island, the most impressive neolithic site on the southern Outer Hebrides. Located on a slope overseeing a bay, today the stones are half overgrown by tundra vegetation like fern and heather. The circle is surprisingly large too, images of it that I'd seen hardly do its size justice.
Did I mention there's many more marvellous beaches on North Uist too? And again they were virtually deserted. We had lunch on one of those perfect beaches alone with the seagulls, and then some ice cream on another beach that with a couple dozen visitors seemed almost crowded. Thanks to the sunny weather and the clear sky we even caught a glimpse of remote St Kilda from the westernmost shores.
After two days almost of soft pedaling in the flat the northern road on North Uist proved almost a challenge, mainly because we had booked a ferry to Skye and were thus on a deadline once more. The terrain is markedly more rugged than the rest of Uist, a series of short steep climbs wore out our legs pretty fast. On top of that we now faced the wind head-on going east, and it blew extra strong on the worst gradients. Just our luck, the deadline loomed over our struggle like a dark cloud. At the same time we could already see the cliffs of the Isle of Skye on the horizon, as though they were taunting us. In spite of all these adversities we made it just in time. As we rolled onto the Lochmaddy pier the ferry was just about to dock with an open bow.
gps tracks
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