Eriskay

Friday 5th June 2015

When I got up on this morning it was chucking it down with rain and it was still raining when I got off the bus at North Bay, the point that I’d reached on my Hebridean trek the day before. I had planned on spending the morning exploring the northern end of the Isle of Barra around the village of Eoligarry, but in the view of the weather I just walked along the road. I was already beginning to feel fed up with walking along roads at this point on my holiday and unfortunately it would not get any better. Despite the rain this wasn’t a bad little walk along the road as Barra is a beautiful island with many wild flowers growing beside the road including bright yellow marsh-marigolds in the drainage ditches and bluebells under the trees. I was disappointed to be leaving the Isle of Barra so soon and was particularly disappointed that the weather had not been better for me. I had hoped to walk along the enormous beach of Tràigh Mhòr that is so big it has a permanent airfield on the sands, but when I got to the southern tip I found that the tide was in so I just headed straight to the ferry terminal and sheltered there from the rain for an hour until the ferry came.

It was still raining when the ferry left Barra, but when I got off the ferry on the Isle of Eriskay it had stopped raining and the sun was coming out. After a horrible morning the afternoon was fabulous as Eriskay basked in bright sunshine that was glorious to behold even though it was windy. Not far from the ferry terminal is an impressive beach called Coilleag a’ Phrionnsa (the Prince’s Strand), where Bonnie Prince Charlie first landed on British soil. This is a fabulous beach so as soon as I got off the ferry I took my waterproofs off and wandered along the beach enjoying the sunshine and continued around the headland to more gorgeous beaches on this north-western corner of Eriskay. I took loads of pictures and spent ages just gazing in awe at the view out to sea across the Sound of Eriskay to South Uist and back towards Barra across the Sound. In the sunshine these beaches seemed extra special and I didn’t want to leave them, but eventually I climbed up into the town (Am Baile) and had my lunch.

Since I had not explored the northern end of Barra I now had plenty of time to explore Eriskay, so after having lunch I wandered through the town and climbed up the hillside past a football pitch that has been recognised by FIFA as one of eight unique places to play the game in the world, even though the pitch is rather bumpy. The stunning views continued as I climbed up to the road and followed it south eventually taking a track on the left to a water treatment plant. Behind the plant there is supposed to be a line of wooden posts that mark a route across the hillside, but just as on Vatersay I found that they were few and far between with no clear path. I didn’t intend on following the marker posts all the way as I had my eyes on Beinn Sciathan, the highest point on Eriskay, so after following the seemingly randomly-located posts for a while I abandoned them and made my own way steeply up a rake to the top of Beinn Sciathan.

The views from the top were simply amazing as Eriskay is a small island so I had sea all around me that reminded me of when in a movie a person who is stranded on a deserted island and climbs to the highest point. The blue skies made the sea a gorgeous deep blue colour that made the view even more astonishing and mesmerising, but the strong winds prompted me to not linger at the top so I soon started heading down the hill in a north-easterly direction towards Rosinish Point. This was a thoroughly enjoyable descent in great weather with amazing sea views ahead of me across the spot where the SS Politician had sank on 5th February 1941 while carrying more than 250,000 bottles of scotch whisky. After passing the abandoned village of Rosinish I came down to the beach opposite the island of Calvay which is almost joined to Eriskay by a crescent shaped sand spit. This is where the SS Politician went down, but unfortunately there’s no sign of it now, or its whisky.

Since there was no whisky galore I made my way onto an old road which led me onto a modern road past modern houses back to the township of Eriskay. I couldn’t believe how good the weather was for this walk once I had gotten off the ferry. The contrast was astonishing, where Barra had been wet, grey and miserable, Eriskay was sunny and warm with blue skies surrounded by a deep blue sea. At the end of the day I reluctantly left the island of Eriskay and walked across the causeway to the island of South Uist. Weather does play an important part in how enjoyable the day is going to be, but ultimately all it does is improve the views and the pictures that I take of that view. The weather cannot add what isn’t there, but on this day the Isle of Eriskay was able to show itself in the best light returning stunning views that are hard to beat anywhere in the country.