The Road to Nowhere

Wednesday 17th June 2015

After a wet day spent walking along the road to Tolsta I was hoping for a better day as I continue my journey north along the length of the Outer Hebrides, but instead I had a really difficult day on the road to nowhere. I had camped at Tràigh Mhòr, just north of Tolsta, and set off along the road from Tolsta north towards nowhere. Just before I reached the bridge over the Abhainn Ghearadha the tarmac road ended with the gravel track beyond the bridge ending soon after. Although this bridge should rightfully be called the Garry Bridge, after the river, it is more commonly known as the Bridge to Nowhere, and is all that remains of an aborted plan to build a road from Tolsta to Skigersta. The Bridge to Nowhere is a solidly built concrete structure that has withstood the last century very well, aided of course by the lack of traffic over it as it really does go nowhere. After less than a mile of pleasurable walking along the track that continues beyond the bridge, it suddenly ended leaving me with no trace of a road or a path.

I enjoy walking along well-constructed tracks or paths and later in the day I would look back on that brief section at the beginning of the day from the bridge with fondness, when I had views behind me of Garry Beach and Tràigh Mhòr and the jagged coastline ahead of me. After fording the Abhain na Cloich there was no path for me to follow across the moor even though O.S. maps indicate a Heritage Trail. Yellow topped posts mark the route of the trail across the moor, but these are often hard to follow, and it soon began to rain again. The posts were difficult to see unless they popped above the horizon, especially in the misty, rainy weather that I had the pleasure of experiencing while crossing this moor. Underfoot, however, was a wonderful display of wild flowers of many colours and of all sorts, more than I had never seen before. I wish I had lingered at this point to examine the many delightful flowers, but since it was raining I pushed on desperately trying to find the non-existent path.

Heavy rain, strong winds and boggy terrain along with a paucity of marker posts made this moorland crossing very unpleasant. At one point I thought I could have been spending my holiday on a beach in the Mediterranean, but instead I was walking across this boggy moor in the pouring rain. Later I could see posts on two widely separated hilltops on the horizon and no way of knowing which one to head for, until I eventually remembered that I had a GPS trace that someone else had made across this route, so I got out my GPS and headed towards the western post down to the upper end of Dibadale. Climbing out of the valley I passed the ruined houses of Lower Dibadale and followed a semblance of a path on flatter and drier ground to what I had endured south of Dibadale. The ground was now mainly grass rather than the heather tussocks of the boggiest sections of the trail.

I continued to follow the marker posts past two lochs even though my GPS was showing that I ought to be half a kilometre west. I don’t know what this post was marking near Loch Bacabhat Àrd, but I headed north from this post passing to the right of Loch Bacaphat Iorach until I realised that the inlet of Leum Langa meant that I was quickly running out of land. I had get back onto the GPS trace so I crossed the northern shore of the loch heading west across the moorland before dropping into a shallow valley where I found a surprisingly clear path near the remains of Maoim. From there I was able to follow the path out of the valley and up to the coast near a ruined chapel above stunning, jagged sea cliffs. I sheltered from the wind behind this chapel and while eating my lunch the rain finally stopped and the sun came out affording me with stunning views of the coastline including the natural arch near Dùn Filiscleitir.

After all the tears, heartache and many hours of moorland crossing it was a relief to have finally reached this point and to find improving weather. With a renewed spring in my step I resumed my walk along the path past the ruins of Filiscleitir where the path improved into a clear track that led to Cuidhsiadar where a number of mobile summer homes (the modern equivalent of Shielings) were to be found. As I made my way into the area of Ness the weather continued to improve with prolonged spells of sunshine only occasional interspersed with showers while only the strong winds remained. I had hoped that I would reach the Butt of Lewis, my ultimate destination on this holiday, during the course of the afternoon, but it soon became obvious that that was not going to be the case and I would have to make plans to complete my Hebridean trek the following morning.

Instead of rushing towards the Butt of Lewis I descended to the Port of Ness and spent some time exploring the beach trying to enjoy myself unwinding from my travails on the moor. This is a good, little place and I’m glad that I was able to spend some time there instead of rushing to get anywhere, and was able to lark about on the rocks and stroll along the beach. After spending some time exploring the coastline around and to the north of the Port of Ness I eventually walked along the road into the township of Eoropie and camped in the dunes behind Tràigh Shanndaigh. This was a very tiring day even though the worst of it was all in the morning on the crossing of Lewis Moor. I had always known that that was not going to be easy, which is one reason why I had put it off until the end of my Hebridean trek. It was very exhausting and was not helped by the poor weather or the navigation posts, which at times were worse than useless.