The Northern Machair and Benbecula

Monday 8th June 2015

I first had the idea of walking the whole length of the Outer Hebrides soon after my visit in 2011 and a search on the internet brought to my notice a book by Peter Clarke (published by Northampton Square Ltd) called "The Timeless Way" that describes a walk the author did along the Western Isles starting from the Butt of Lewis and ending on the Isle of Vatersay. This book became my inspiration throughout my planning of this walk even though I eventually decided to do the walk in the other direction. When I heard the local council was planning to build a long distance path across the Hebrides that would be completed summer 2015 I decided this was when I was going to be doing my long awaited walk. Unfortunately the building of the new Hebridean Way seems to have been delayed as up to this point in my trek I hadn’t seen a single trace of this new path, much to my disappointment. The day before this walk I had seen a new path near Loch Druidibeag, but I have no idea whether this is part of the Hebridean Way.

Since I had no idea of the route of the new long distance path, and there is no sign of it on the ground, I had to resort to the route of Peter Clarke’s Timeless Way written almost ten years ago. Unfortunately, for various reasons, I had not been sticking exactly to this route and that had led to me doing a lot of walking along roads, which was becoming very tiresome. By the end of this day I was so fed up with all the road walking I was thinking of abandoning the whole trek. Ultimately I should have waited a year or two until the new Hebridean Way was built and all the signage was in place as I’m sure I would have enjoyed that walk considerably more than this one. At the start of this day it was raining once again, which it had been doing every day of my holiday and was itself bringing me down, but it soon stopped raining and it would not rain again for a whole week.

I started the walk by resuming the Machair Way, which I had walking along on Saturday. On that day I had thought the Machair Way was badly signposted, but now I began to spot the arrowed signs that mark the route and wondered if I had simply been unobservant. My route headed north across the wildflower-rich grasslands of the machair until eventually I left all trace of a track or path and continued north across the fields with the birds continuing to screech overhead that had been accompanying me throughout my walk across the machair. Eventually I reached the edge of the Hebrides Range, which I had skirted the day before, but now, since it was not active, I was able to continue north across the middle of the missile testing range just as Peter Clarke had done when he walked the Timeless Way. The new Hebridean Way will, I presume, go around the military range, but I have no idea what route it will take.

Near the barracks I joined one of the range roads and followed this for a while until my unending quest north prompted me to leave the road and head across the grasslands once again until I eventually left the rocket range behind at Cill Amhlaid. My onward progress was now tediously along the road that passes the townships that line the northern edge of North Uist with views across the sea and over the South Ford to the island of Benbecula. It was curious to see, dotted beside the road, several small mother and child shrines that date from the 1950s when the Hebrides Range was being established. This reminder of the deeply ingrained Catholic culture in this area is unique in the British Isles and made me feel like I was walking in a different country far from Britain. The road through the townships took me beside the coast until I eventually reached the main road at Carnan where a short walk across the causeway brought me to the fifth island on my Hebridean expedition, Benbecula.

After stopping at the Co-op in Cregorry for some food, I turned off the main road onto the coastal road and after passing a school I took a road on the right heading north that became a path and after passing through Torlum took me to Griminish township. The Timeless Way turns east at this point to a path that Peter Clarke described as “rather soggy,” however I was concerned that I was running out of money so I needed to head to the north-western corner of the island and the relatively bustling town of Balivanich. A path is marked on the map from Griminish that would take me in the right direction, but soon after taking it I was led into a quagmire that was rather more than soggy. Against common sense I kept going for longer than I should until eventually, with no trace of a path around me, I came to my senses and waded back through the bogs until I was once more back on the road. Feeling more than a little frustrated with Hebridean footpaths I wearily walked along the road back onto the coastal road and eventually reached Balivanich.

This town was actually quite a surprise for me as it doesn’t conform to the Hebridean norms that I had become used to, due to several small rows of ex-Ministry of Defence housing that made the town seem positively suburban. The military base and the nearby airport has transformed Balivanich into the administrative centre of the Uist islands and was ideal for my aim of getting some money and some non-food supplies, for which MacGilivray’s, a gift shop, was very helpful. Peter Clarke was disappointed that his Timeless Way didn’t go through Balivanich and that he didn’t get a chance to visit MacGilivray’s, so at least on my diversion I was able to do that. Following the road out of the town I climbed up past Loch Dùn Mhurchaidh to the main road and along a track opposite past the local tip and around Ruabhal, the highest hill on Benbecula, to the point where the track just starts to descend and there I made camp with a view across the loch-filled eastern moor.

My end point on this walk was a tranquil spot with no sign of civilisation besides the track to Ròsinis on the eastern coast, but the rest of the day had not been good. It was a very tiring walk and I felt that I had not encountered anything of interest throughout the day. However, I had passed extensive wildflower-rich grasslands on the machair and dramatic coastal scenery between Benbecula and South Uist, but I felt like I had already seen views such as these before, and that I was unbelievably getting used to the unique Hebridean landscape. I reached the low point of my holiday at the end of this day, so much so that I seriously considered abandoning the whole thing. I was disappointed in the non-appearance of the new Hebridean Way and I was not confident that the Timeless Way was going to deliver a satisfying walk. It is tragic to think that in the stunning surroundings below Ruabhal I was wishing I’d never started.

Loch Druidibeag and the beach on South Uist

Sunday 7th June 2015

When I was previously on the Isle of South Uist, in 2011, staying at the Howmore Youth Hostel, I did a walk from Ralph Storer’s definitive guide to the “100 Best Routes on Scottish Mountains” that involved climbing the three highest hills on the island: Beinn Mhor, Ben Corodale and Hecla. On that occasion I got to the top of the highest of the three, Beinn Mhor, where bad weather forced me to abandon the walk. On this return visit I had intended on doing the whole walk during a two-night rest at the Howmore Youth Hostel during my Hebridean trek north. However when I got to the hostel the previous evening, I was so thoroughly exhausted after carrying a heavy rucksack all day I really didn’t have the energy to then climb three mountains. Instead I decided I would take it easy and after a slow start to the day I wandered down to the coast and slowly made my way up the beach.

I wouldn’t have done the hill walk if the weather had been bad again, but the weather was a lot better than four years ago with good weather almost all day even though it was a bit breezy, which seems to be the norm in the Outer Hebrides. The wind wasn’t as strong as it had been the day before, but it had shifted to the north bringing such a chill to the air that I often wore gloves despite the sunshine. As I walked up the coast I reflected on the rubbish that I was seeing that had presumably been washed up from the sea and made me feel really depressed about mankind and the way we treat the planet. There were millions of plastic bottles, and also old tires, pallets and even a microwave. After walking along a track behind the dunes for a while I decided to drop down onto the beach and enjoy the stunning weather with a retreating tide making for views that were amazing. A beach appeals on a primal level to us all, or maybe it appeals especially to anyone born within a hundred miles of the sea, i.e. anyone born in Britain.

I wandered slowly up the beach while taking loads of pictures and hopping around the shoreline playing with the lapping seas. The cold weather was not a concern for me as I basked in the blue skies, the sunshine and in the churning seas. Eventually I tore myself away from the beach and onto a track that took me to a white flagpole that marks the edge of the Hebrides Range. On a Sunday the missile testing range was not going to be active, but I was wondering about the next day when I would be passing through this area again on my Hebridean trek. Since I was in the area I thought I’d explore my options for the next day, but I couldn’t find much of a route until after I had crossed several fields and eventually found a clear track that took me away from the military range through the township of West Gerinish to the main road, where there didn’t seem to be anything to help me with my route for the next day.

On reaching the main road I turned south for a short distance to a road that heads up to the top of the small hill, Ruabhal, where the control centre for the range is situated. Technically I wasn’t supposed to walk up to the range control, but I wanted to get a view across the flat machair grasslands out to the coast. The hills on North Uist could be clearly seen in the distance , but it was the extensive views across the loch-filled coastal plain of South Uist that caught my eye. Before reaching the range control buildings I turned off the road to a tall, white stone statue situated on the western side of the hill. This statue of a mother and child is known as “Our Lady of the Isles”, but since I’m not catholic it held little interest for me except for the views that can be seen from beside the statue of the surrounding area. It reminded me of the statue that I had seen on the side of Heaval on the Isle of Barra that overlooks Castlebay, but this one is on a much bigger scale.

After taking a few pictures I headed straight back down to the road and after eating my lunch I continued heading south beside the road until I reached a crossroads with Grogarry to my right and a road to Loch Sgiopoirt to my left. I took this latter road past delightful lochs away from the wildflower-rich machair plains that I had previously been walking through in South Uist into the bulk of the island that is made up of heather and bog-filled moors and hills. The three hills that I had originally planned to walk up on this day now dominated my view and they were teasing me with what could have been as I made my way along the road until I reached a small car park and the start of a small track that headed back towards the main road. After a short distance this track became a recently constructed, and heavily manufactured, path that led me across the boggy, heathery ground.

If a path is going to be heavily used on this sort of terrain then a heavily manufactured gravel path is what is needed, but I couldn’t help wondering why this path had been built, and whether I could use it on my trek north. This path would make a great addition to the trek, but I couldn’t see how that would help unless there was another path from the Loch Sgioport road that led to the minor road near Loch Sheileabhaig. It was a delight to walk along this excellent path and added to my enjoyment of the walk through this stunning nature reserve until I finally returned to the main road near the township of Drimsdale. When I realised where I was I was astonished as my map had indicated that the path went to Stilligarry, which must mean that this new path follows a completely different route to the one marked on the map. While musing on this I followed the road through Drimsdale to Drimsdale House where I turned left along the Machair Way back to Howmore.

When I got back to Howmore the weather was stunning with the low tide enticing me to venture back onto the beach where I took countless pictures of the sea, but it was the view inland that really attracted my attention. The three hills of Beinn Mhor, Ben Corodale and Hecla were arrayed in glorious fashion and looked stunning with the white sands in the foreground and these hills in the distance, but I think the best picture I took of these hills, and one that I’ve seen on postcards, is taken from the bridge over the River Roag. This sight encapsulated a fabulous day that more than made up for missing out on walking up these three hills, but since most of the day these hills had been enveloped in cloud I was reassured that I had made the right decision. This was just the sort of walk that I needed after my near total exhaustion at the end of the previous day.