Benbecula and South Uist

Monday 28th August 2017

After a tumultuous night beside the coast of the small Hebridean island of Benbecula with the wind howling at my tent, somehow I woke to find that my sturdy little tent was still intact even though it was still being battered about by the wind that had now moved to the west. I had positioned my tent behind Culla Bay, not far from Balivanich, where I thought it was sheltered from the winds only for those winds to move during the night and attempt to knock my tent sideward. The Hebridean Way crosses the sands of Culla Bay, but with the rain and strong winds I decided to, once I had hastily broken camp, make a course behind the shelter of the narrow strip of dunes between the beach and the machair farmland behind. At the southern end of the bay I took a quick look at the beach, but in the harsh weather it did not look appealing, however I was now back on the Hebridean Way which leaves the beach at this point to come onto the coastal road until another broad sweep of sandy beach appears. A strong smell of rotting seaweed filled the air and didn’t prompt me to follow the Hebridean Way onto the beach, but after a short spell along the top of the dunes eventually I did come down onto the sands.

It was quite enjoyable walking along the white sands of this beach despite the wind howling at me from off the sea, though it helped that the rain had mostly stopped. A thick line of foam from the whipped seas lined the edge of the tide and was being blown across the sands as I headed south. When I reached the southern end the rain had started up again so I came back off the beach, while the Hebridean Way follows the coast around the headland of Sithean Bhuirgh. I was getting quite wet from the rain being blown into my face, so I was glad to turn away from the headwind and make my way along a farmer’s track across the machair to reach the coastal road at the township of Borve. Curiously the rain seemed to stop as soon as I had come off the beach and by the time I reached the road there was a noticeable brightening of the sky. The Hebridean Way swings round the headland to follow the southern shore of Benbecula whereas I walked beside the road until I was eventually rejoined by the trail in Liniclate at the point that it comes off the beach. I never saw any sign of the Hebridean Way coming onto the road, but it should be between Liniclate School and the Dark Island Hotel.

Continuing along the road and onto the main road I stopped at the Co-op in Creagorry for supplies and when I came out I was astonished to see blue skies and sunshine. In the improving weather I made my way over the causeway to my sixth island on this trek, South Uist. When I walked the length of the Outer Hebrides two years ago, making up my own route before the Hebridean Way had been completed, I had taken a route right through the middle of M.O.D. Hebrides, a weapons Test and Evaluation Range in the north-eastern corner of South Uist. Fortunately for me it had not been active at the time, but the Hebridean Way cannot take that route so soon after reaching South Uist I now turned right away from the route that I had taken two years ago and headed along the quiet road to Ardmore. Several showers came and went at this point meaning that my waterproofs were still required until after a prolonged walk along the road where a familiar Hebridean Way signpost appeared directing me across the rain-soaked moor.

There was no trace of a path or any sign of directions for where I should be going so after wading through very wet ground I eventually made my way to a pole carrying electricity cables. From the vantage of this oasis I could see a green lane and once I reached that I had a relatively drier walk until a road came to my rescue. On this road was a sign proclaiming the Lochcarnon Community Windfarm, while in the distance three wind turbines could be seen with a wide gravel road heading off towards them. The Hebridean Way follows this stony road, but it was horrible to walk upon for my tortured feet and seemed to go on for ever while the apparently small turbines grew bigger and bigger until when I was eventually standing underneath them they were enormous and seemed very scary as the blades made ominous whooshing sounds. The weather by this point was amazing so I stopped for my lunch sitting on one of the enormous, discarded reels of electrical cabling not far from the start of a footpath that heads back across the moor.

This is an excellent, well-made path that was a joy to walk upon after the slippery stones on the road, but all too soon the path ended and I was left to make my way across the heather moor with just a line of wooden posts to mark my route. The scarcity of posts and the failure of the good path made me very depressed and fed up with the Hebridean Way that I now considered to be a boggy route, cheaply made, across waterlogged ground. I was cursing the makers of the Hebridean Way and my decision to walk upon it until finally I reached a well-made bridge across the outflow of Loch Bee where a good, gravel path resumed and took me to the main road near the large statue of Our Lady of the Isles. After a distance on this road I turned off onto the small road to Loch Sgioport that I had walked upon two years ago and on that occasion I had come across a well-made path that at the time I had wondered whether it was part of the Hebridean Way, and now I know that it is. However I was disappointed to discover a mixture of surfaces with some very good paths in places and also some very wet ground with occasional marker posts, but in the good weather it was still good to walk through the picturesque South Uist landscape with the three peaks of the island, Thacla, Beinn Choradail and Beinn Mhòr, dominating the view.

After the heavy rains of the last week all the lochs and rivers were full to overflowing and I suppose this was why the paths were very boggy, but I was not in the mood to consider this. My feet were really aching with blisters and goodness knows what else afflicting them, while I was really tired following the strong winds overnight and I had run out of water at lunchtime. And added to all that, throughout the day I had been heading into a strong wind thanks to my brilliant decision to do the Hebridean Way in the wrong direction, north to south, so I suppose it is no wonder that I was not really appreciating the trail at this point. When I reached the main road I crossed over and took a side road through Drimsdale and the machair to the west coast of the island a short distance from the youth hostel at Howmore. This was a very tiring day that had started poorly in bad weather and although the weather improved my mood did not.