Month: September 2023

Sunday morning I drive down through Skye, on proper two-lane roads, through the towering Cuillins, as the rain begins to fall, and join a swelling logjam of coaches and camper vans. Sunday, I guess, is getaway day. 

I stop for coffee in Broadford, and the queue is out the door. After the calm and quiet of Lewis, it feels like a seething mass of humanity.

Then on a tip from a friend, cutting right onto the road less traveled, a narrow single-track road which wends and twists its way up, up, up and over, yielding spectacular views at the top, even on a grey day.

Down eventually to a ferry terminal, which is a hut beside a slipway. The ferry is on the far side of the loch, loading cars. It’s just me and the midges on the Skye side, as I discover when I get out of the car to take in the view.

It has a rustic feel, this ferry. It berths alongside the jetty, whereupon a wild-looking mountain man manually wheels the turntable containing the cars (three in this case, it can take six) until it diagonally overhangs the slipway, the ramps are thrown down, and the cars exit.

I drive on, a big Mercedes SUV follows me. The crew disappear into the wheelhouse and stay there for some time. I begin to worry that they won’t sail without a minimum of three cars, but in due course they reappear, the boat sets off, and Mountain Man swings the whole turntable round so that we’re facing the shore. 

Then he appears at my window. He’s standing on the edge of the boat, outside the safety railings, and takes my payment with an iPad in one hand and a wireless card reader in the other. Nothing, one feels, could go wrong in this scenario.

The road on the mainland is very reminiscent of its counterpart on Skye, single track, but with a better surface. It climbs dramatically and then descends, affording breathtaking viewpoints along the way, with many pauses in the journey forced by procrastinating sheep on the road.

They feel reassuringly familiar – the single track, and the sheep – but eventually I turn right onto the A87, rejoining the great Sunday caravan southwards, where the roads are sensible, and the sheep are safely behind wire fences. 

Onwards through Glen Shiel, Glen Garry, and Glen Roy, where I clock up the 1000th mile of the trip. By the time I reach Edinburgh I’ve notched up over 1,100 miles, and – it turns out – put on a couple of extra kilos to boot.

The forty minutes of extra daylight I gained by going north are suddenly lost again, and Edinburgh feels dark, and cold. And so… back to normal, back to busyness, back to work. Back to having to lock my car again.

Until the next time.

See you again, Isle of Lewis.

Am up before the dawn to make an 0825 ferry from Leverburgh, on the southern tip of Harris. When booking the ferries for this trip months ago, I hadn’t appreciated the distances involved, and the non-directness of the roads.

Still, the roads were quiet, apart from the promised deer, who were out in force, along with the ubiquitous sheep, and plenty of rabbits.

Just as I officially cross over into Harris, the sun climbs above the hills, and mist rises from lochs and burns. It’s a beautiful sunny morning, and breathtakingly still.

The ferry from Leverburgh weaves through multiple little islands on its way to Berneray. On arrival I refuel with coffee and coffee cake, before driving over to the west beach, parking and walking across the machair and through the dunes.

The west beach is predictably stunning, and stretches all the way up the west side of the island.

Am dog-tired from my early start and the ‘mild’ winds robbing me of sleep the other night. I find a little hollow in the dunes sheltered from the cooling breeze, and catch forty winks in the sunshine. 

From there I drive down into North Uist, finding a food van on the west side, which serves me an epic scallops and Stornoway black pudding roll. Plus a traybake. I sit outside with a view across to islands I cannot name, and a crossword that I cannot finish.

After a brief diversion down into Benbecula, I drive to Lochmaddy, and a 1645 ferry to Uig, Skye. Arriving slightly early, I have tea and coffee cake at a nearby cafe before boarding.

I have to nap on the ferry due to the excessive cake-eating.

On arrival into Uig, I find a pub showing the Ireland v Tonga game. The pub smells strongly of wet dog. Watching games in pubs is fun when there’s a large crowd engaged in watching. When you’re almost the only person interested in the game, and have to crane your neck every so often as someone playing pool is blocking your view of the screen, it’s less involving.

Sometime during the first half I retreat back to my Airbnb and watch the rest of the game on a smaller screen. Ireland run out comfortable winners, but there are sterner challenges to come, with South Africa and Scotland due up in the next few weeks.

It’s a lovely, sunny morning. I decide to head back to Reef Beach, once again passing Cliff on the way, where there’s a decent swell and quite a few surfers in the water.

The water at Reef is once again turquoise, and feels a very similar temperature as it did on Tuesday at Luskentyre. I am the only one in the water. I float on my back, and drink in the view to the north where there is the beginnings of a rainbow rising out of the water and disappearing into a dark cloud, just to the west of the island of Pabaigh Mòr. Just then it feels like stingy seaweed wraps itself around my right forearm. I fling it away. Realise it was the tentacle of a jellyfish. It isn’t particularly sore and am not quite sure what to do but I don’t want to continue swimming so I leave the water and get changed.

I take a couple of antihistamines, and some medicinal hot chocolate from my Isle of Harris flask. Great hot chocolate is, I reckon, more about the context than the contents. The best hot chocolates of my life have been at the top of a snowy mountain towards the end of a great ski day, and from a flask after a swim in the sea.

After a visit to a pharmacy in Stornoway, where I am assured that antihistamines will take care of the jellyfish sting, I carry on up to the the Butt of Lewis, which features a Stevenson Lighthouse. The Butt of Lewis is the most northerly point in Lewis, and reputed to be the windiest place in the U.K., but there’s not a breath of wind today.

After a nap back at the Pod, I drive to Crust, a shipping container in a field near Leurbost which has been converted into an excellent pizza kitchen, with a fabulous view of the Harris hills.

Tosh and Ged come out to meet me to say goodbye on my return, as I have an early start in the morning. “Watch out for deer,” they warn.

The wind remains high all morning. Tosh invites me in for a coffee, and brushes away my suggestions that the wind was strong last night.

“The Pod has survived much worse than that,” she assures me.

I head over to Callinish to see the standing stones, and do a walk around all three sites. Wind still very strong (by my standards), and at a point in the walk when it’s at my back, a rain shower blows in, and thoroughly drenches the back of my legs. Otherwise I remain dry.

I make another attempt to find the Bothy. It takes me three or four passes along the cliffs, but eventually I manage it. The wind is still incredibly blustery, but it’s blowing off the sea, so if anything it’s keeping me more safe. The waves pounding and crashing into the sea stacks, exploding into spray, is a spectacular sight. 

The Bothy is a very special, near-magical place, beautifully-designed and built on a shelf in the cliffs. It has three windows, one with views westward across the sea, one of the cliffs and sea stacks to the north, and one in the roof. It would be a dramatic place to spend the night.

In the evening I have dinner at Uig Sands, a fine dining restaurant with an even finer view through floor-to-ceiling windows across the beach at Uig. My server brings me plate after plate with very small amounts of food on them, but what’s there is deliciously tasty.

I drive back to the Pod in the twilight, with the lochs shining light blue against the darkened hills.

The forecast is for rain to come in the early afternoon.

I head towards Reef beach. Driving on the island has presented me with a difficult choice. On the one hand, the roads are frequently single-track, and demand caution when going round blind corners. On the other, the surfaces are very good, and the roads wind, weave and bend up hills and through valleys, which – in a small car which holds the road well – makes it great fun to open the throttle and let rip.

Taking the second approach this morning, I fly round a blind corner and slam on the anchors upon suddenly finding myself in a three-car traffic jam. A couple of workmen are repairing a pothole in one of the passing places, and while neither of them thumps a staff on the ground and screams “You shall not pass!” … they might as well have. And so we wait, and watch.

On my way to Reef I stumble across Cliff beach, where the waves look epic, and may have only recently become so, as there are a number of surfers suddenly suiting up and running across the sand towards the surf.

I agonise over going in (for a swim). I reckon the rain’s not far away, and so decide against it. I drive on to Reef beach, which is also beautiful, and calmer. The clouds arrive shortly, and put an end to my swim plans.

I circle round the peninsula via Reef village, and back to Uig, coming across the very same workmen fixing another pothole.

Ordering a toastie in the Uig Community Cafe, I look up to see that nothing whatsoever can be seen through the windows. The weather has officially closed in.

I write some postcards (postcards, I am delighted to discover, are alive and well on the Isle of Lewis), and visit the local museum, learning a lot about the area’s Norse history, the Highland Clearances, and the Lewis Chessmen.

It’s a thunderously windy night, and the Pod creaks and groans. I am convinced the whole thing will lift off the ground at any moment and deposit me in a nearby loch. This doesn’t happen, and I eventually get to sleep around 5am.

Having no breakfast materials, I am up sharp and at the only shop for miles in time for its 9am opening to get bread, butter and milk.

It’s an amazing shop, very well stocked with all manner of foodstuffs and other things. Sadly they have no flasks, as I was hoping, having realised at some too-late point on the A9 that I had left mine at home. I pick up a hat instead, which I accept is not technically a good substitute for a flask, but one can never have too many hats.

The sun is out. My hat is not even needed. I decided to head south to Harris and maybe Luskentyre for a swim. Am wary of going in for a swim alone, and the beaches here are renowned for being deserted, but Luskentyre is, I understand, pretty famous, so I can be sure of a few folk floating around. Perhaps literally.

The drive south proves to be epic in the September sunshine, with gorgeous vistas at every turn as the road climbs through the hills.

Luskentyre beach, I discover, is at the end of three miles of properly single track road, which takes a certain amount of navigating, and proves to be reasonably busy, in that there were about fifteen people there.

The beach is gorgeous, with turquoise water framed by the hills of Taransay beyond. I swim for about twenty minutes, no wetsuit required. I like to think I spoiled a reasonable number of Instagram shots.

I stop at a beach hut on the way back out, pick up an Isle of Harris-branded flask and have a cup of tea on a bench with a stunning view over to Seilebost.

Back at the Pod, I make dinner with some locally-smoked salmon, and walk back to the Mangersta Cliffs, hoping to find the famous Mangersta Bothy which my elusive friend had alerted me to, but I fail in my quest. Instead I unexpectedly find a bull, who gives me a baleful look, and I beat a hasty retreat back to the Pod.

Tonight it’s a clear night, the sky is packed with stars, and maybe even a slight aurora on the northern horizon.

On Monday, I catch a ferry from Ullapool to Stornoway, for my first proper trip to the Isle of Lewis.

Following a lovely lunch and a sunny clifftop walk with an elusive friend (known for four years but never met) on Point, I head south out of Stornoway, turning right at Leurbost and all the way over to Mangersta on the west of the island. It’s an amazingly scenic drive, vast swathes of machair punctuated by lochs, rocks and hills, and the sun in a bright blue and white sky over the bigger hills of Harris to the south.

The two-lane highway on which I started quickly gives way to a single track road with passing places, curves and dips.

I check in at the Mangersta Pod, and meet Tosh and Ged – my Airbnb hosts. Tosh is from Lancashire originally, but moved to Lewis over fifty years ago. The Pod has a small hob, microwave, fridge, shower room, and – mercifully as I have zero 4G reception from anywhere west of Uig – wifi.

After a quick dinner, I embark on my second clifftop walk of the day, encountering numerous sheep but no humans as I tramp through marshy fields to the edge of the cliffs, spectacular sea stacks, and over and down to Mangersta beach. The beach is stunning. Sadly it’s not safe for swimming.

A squall comes out of nowhere, and I take emergency shelter in the lee of a rock.

The rain passed, I watch the sun go down over the Atlantic. It occurs to me that – coming this far north – I’ve gained twenty minutes of evening light.

I walk back to the Pod through the gloaming. As I settle in for the night it’s astonishingly quiet and very, very dark.