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. 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 had no intention of following the marker posts all the way as I had my eyes on Beinn Sgritheann, 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 Sgritheann.

The views from the top were simply amazing as Eriskay is a small island so I had sea all around me which reminded me of when in a movie a person who is stranded on a deserted island 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 to head 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 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 and 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 walking 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.

Vatersay and Barra

Thursday 4th June 2015

Soon after my first visit to the Outer Hebrides in 2011 I had the idea of walking along the entire length of these Western Isles from the southernmost inhabited island all the way up to the northern tip on the Isle of Lewis. At the time it was a very ambitious idea that was nothing like anything that I had done before, but in the intervening years I have been preparing and practicing until finally I felt I was ready and unwilling to delay another year so with extra holiday booked from work I set off to achieve my audacious goal. Catching the train to Oban I got onto the ferry to the beautiful island of Barra and when I reached Castlebay I was greeted with fantastic weather and stunning evening views out to sea across the bay and past the castle-topped rock that sits in the middle of the bay. I felt excited at the prospect of spending the next two weeks in the Outer Hebrides with scenery as stunning at this.

Unfortunately the following morning it was overcast and as I waited for the bus it started drizzling. This early morning bus, which had just me and an Italian cabbie (who I would meet again several times during my holiday), dropped us off on the tiny island of Vatersay between Vatersay Bay and West Bay before reaching the township of Vatersay. When I was in the Outer Hebrides in 2011 I had bought a small booklet of Walks in the Western Isles (published by Hallewell) and the last walk in the guidebook describes “A short loop through the beaches and grazing land of the southernmost inhabited island in the Western Isles” around Vatersay, so I thought that would be a good place for me to start my epic Hebridean trek. Taking a path across the wildflower-rich machair grassland I soon reached Tràigh Siar, West Beach, and the first of many beaches that I would walk upon in this holiday.

The weather may not have been great but at least it wasn’t raining as I explored the small beach before climbing the grassy hills above the bay and left my Italian companion behind to do his own walk. The views from the top of the old fort, Dun Bhatarsaigh, across the bay and towards the township of Vatersay were so peaceful and tranquil that I felt the chaotic, modern demands of spreadsheets and presentations just drift away. Following infrequent wooden posts I headed south across the rocky, and at times boggy, terrain until I eventually reached the southernmost tip of this southernmost inhabited island in the Outer Hebrides. The island of Sandray loomed large across the sea while other uninhabited islands, Pabbay and Mingulay among many others, continue the chain south, but Vatersay is the southernmost inhabited island so this was my starting point. A huge slab of rock and a strong smell of rotting seaweed was all that I found at Heillanish, the southernmost tip, so I turned around and headed towards South Bay.

This is a gorgeous beach with almost white sand fringed by a shingle bank, but rain brought my waterproofs out again just before the sun came out as I climbed above the bay and onto the grassy machair to the east. There followed at this point a pleasant walk across a grassy hillside that was covered with primroses and other wildflowers including occasionally the delightful spotted-orchid. Above the abandoned settlement of Eòrasdail my route turned and on approaching the waters of Vatersay Bay I headed back west towards the white sands of East Beach not far from the township of Vatersay. At the northern end of this beach I had reached the end of the Vatersay Circular Walk and now I had to make my own way north. Not wanting to walk along the road I veered off after passing the old school house and followed a line of electricity pylons on what I thought was a path, but was probably just sheep trails or maybe the course of an old wall.

Except for visiting a memorial beside a Second World War aircraft wreck, I followed this turfed-over old wall past the Uidh peninsula before dropping back down onto the road beside a jetty. My enthusiasm to find off-road routes didn’t last very long as once I was back on the road I stayed there around the edge of Cornaig Bay and up to the small causeway that links Vatersay to Barra. Once back on the Isle of Barra I stayed on the road all the way back to Castlebay while the weather gradually improved so that by the time I was having lunch looking out over the bay the sun was shining. Leaving Castlebay behind I started to climb the hill out of the town, leaving the road at the highest point onto the steep hillside up to the highest point on the island of Barra, Heabhal. I had stunning views from the slopes of Heabhal that stretched across Castlebay and towards Vatersay and to the uninhabited islands beyond. I paused many times during the steep climb to look at that view while catching my breath.

Near the top of Heabhal is a white statue of the Virgin and Child looking across the bay. Such statues are common in Catholic countries, but I have never seen any in the United Kingdom, except in the Outer Hebrides where Catholic symbols are commonplace. The summit of Heabhal is not far from the statue, but cloud had enveloped the top so I didn’t linger and passing along the summit ridge I continued to head north, which would always be my ultimate aim on this holiday, along the ridge of the hills that form the backbone of Barra. Despite the overcast skies and a cold breeze the weather seemed mild and I enjoyed making my own way across the pathless hills heading over Hartabhal, Grianan and Beinn Bheireasaigh along the main ridge of the island. There was little variation in height on the ridge though I gradually was heading downhill, so without much effort I enjoyably made my across the island and eventually came onto the road at the western end of Loch an Dùin near North Bay.

It had been my intention to catch a bus back to Castlebay from North Bay, but I had failed to check the timetable and if I had I would have seen that the only bus was an hour later. Rather than wait I started to walk towards Castlebay along the east coast road hoping to catch the bus when it came up behind me, however that bus took a west coast route so two hours after leaving North Bay I eventually reached Castlebay in the pouring rain. Despite this wearying end to the day this was a sensational walk that the rest of the holiday would find hard to beat and was a good start to my trek up the Hebrides, helped by not carrying a heavy rucksack. The Vatersay Circular Walk was a definite highlight of the day, but my traverse of the line of hills that run up the centre of the island was also an enjoyable part of the day. Although there were a lot of ups and downs on this holiday I didn’t climb any mountains so that astonishingly Heabhal, at just 384 metres high, was the highest point I climbed on my entire holiday.