A Hebridean Adventure

You know, when you’ve been home for a few days after a lovely holiday and it already feels like it all happened to someone else? Well, that’s where I am. We’re back home on the boat after spending a few weeks exploring the 135 mile long Outer Hebrides in our motorhome. The whole trip lasted 25 days, we drove 1462 miles, did four different ferry crossings, used 19 different park-ups/campsites and, despite variable weather, it was our best van trip yet. But it already seems like a distant memory!

This year, we started at the southern end of the Hebrides, taking the ferry from Oban, on the mainland, to Castlebay on the Isle of Barra. We spent a couple of nights acclimatising at the north end of the isle on Scurrival Campsite. Heather’s nursing skills were immediately put to the test by a bloke with a badly scolded leg who was refusing to go to hospital – needless to say, he was persuaded!! We then scooted back down to Vatersay and a community park up on the machair surrounded by mooching cattle. The Hebridean Islands run roughly north to south and have the North Atlantic Ocean on the western side and the Sea of the Hebrides on the other. At this spot on Vatersay the beaches are only 380 m (415 yds) apart, great if you want to see both the sunrise (with the mooing cows) and the sunset (with the sleepy cows).

We caught a tiny ferry from north Barra to Eriskay landing close to Bonnie Prince Charlie’s Beach where he landed in 1745 to launch the ill-fated Jacobite Rebellion. More recently, Eriskay became famous for inspiring Compton Mackenzie’s novel “Whiskey Galore” based on the shenanigans surrounding the wrecking of SS Politician in 1941, when the helpful islanders liberated some of the 260,000 bottles of whisky on board.

We used the new causeway (24 years old) that links Eriskay to South Uist to get to Garryamonie Beach for a gorgeous sunset. Uist is embracing visitors and there’s a really cool app (Uist Unearthed) you can use to navigate to places of interest and to view historical ruins using augmented reality. Unfortunately, some of ruins are only accessible by walking along the Hebridean Way so we couldn’t access all of them with our 7 metre motorhome. But we did spend a week exploring Uist and absolutely loved it. There was a high Spring Tide when we were at one of the beach park ups and we were surrounded by the sea for a few hours, it scared the other campers off and we had it all to ourselves!

Our next ferry took us from Berneray to Leverbugh on the Isle of Harris and we were back on familiar territory from last year’s trip, so we drove to a favourite Harris trust camp spot along the shores of Luskentyre.

These park ups are designated spots maintained by the communities on the islands with either cash honesty boxes or QR codes to scan to give a donation. It’s a great system to encourage responsible tourism and support the local people.

Heading on to Hushinish Beach, we were respectful of the now familiar cattle who have horns like can openers, big enough to rip our van open with a single swipe. The next morning, we were delighted to see a porpoise swimming in the bay, sharing the local fish with a pair of gannets.

The next day we drove back to Gleann Mhiabhaig, waiting for late afternoon to walk up the track to the Eagle Observatory. It was a bit of a wait but Ian was first to spot the Golden eagles rising on the thermals of the western ridge. It was quite exciting to see them hunt, so we kept looking over our shoulders as we walked back down the path, just in case they reappeared.

Further north and on to Lewis, we found the unhappy looking wooden Chessman at Uig and decided on one final quest; we headed down to Scalpay to walk to the Eileen Glas lighthouse for coffee and cake. This place must be on your bucket list for amazing views and the chance of seeing marine life including Minke whales and sea otters. The coffee and cake (shipped in from Inverness) were delicious and a tribute to the cafe owner who has to carry the supplies the last half a mile from his car. Spotting a sea eagle on the way back made this the perfect ending to our Hebridean adventure, it was just beautiful.