Cycling through Uist on the Journey for the Wild
July 2006
In the summer of 2006 the John Muir Trust organised a journey of thousands of miles, in which four 'journey staffs' were carried from the extremities of Great Britain to Ben Nevis, and then on to the Scottish Parliament in Edinburgh. I carried the western staff through part of the Western Isles, from Barra to North Uist.
8 July. Castlebay-Lochboisdale-Howmore
The bus appears despite my timetable worries - of necessity, I have to use buses and the ferry to get from Barra's Castlebay to the official startpoint at Lochboisdale. Other passengers leave at the airport, to see the Glasgow plane land on Barra's great strand. The ferry butts across the sound, and on a second bus I cross Eriskay to South Uist and Lochboisdale, my bike pickup point, where no bike is waiting. The tourist office area is hell, being environmentalised by JCBs and slab-cutters. Tommy the bike hirer is phoned. He thought I was arriving on the 1.30 boat. An hour later, with tremendous relief, I'm able to pack the panniers, strap the big journey staff to the crossbar, get on the bike and pedal off slowly in dull, gusty weather into the quiet of the moorland birds.
Buy supplies at Daliburgh co-op and stop for soup and coffee at Kildonan Museum. Barbara McKinnon's cooking is good and the museum, which I can't visit, has fine old photographs. Reach Howmore's Gatliff Trust hostel at 4 after 20 km. And the shop at Howmore has a licence! I visit the first of my beaches but it's dull with a strong onshore wind so I don't linger. Cattle wander round the township but nowadays are kept from the graveyards and church buildings, ruinous but majestic and perhaps 13 centuries old.
9 July. Howmore to Baleshare
There's a small presence in the roof timbers of the hostel, below the thatch; probably the wren I saw round the door. Today proves the forecasters wrong. Wind is NNW, with clear skies and burning sun all day. Janni Diez, attending a Gaelic course for Germans, says I should call the journey staff bata an iar, stick of the west.
Past Our Lady of the Isles, Loch Bi provides the first of many causeways. On to Benbecula where the traffic and the headwind pick up. At the bay north of Borgh a Dutch couple, golfers in a stylish TR6 who've played the Tom Morris course at Askernish, give me coffee. His return to the islands after 30 years. Then I have a dook in the bay, warm waves and cold winds. Later I hear it's called Spinkie Bay, or it may be Stinky Bay because of the seaweed that gets stuck there. Next bay up is Culla, even nicer looking. Balivanich, biggest town after Stornoway in all the isles, has a supermarket, then it's on to the necklace of causeways threading sapphire waters to Grimsay and finally North Uist. At which point gradients appear for the first time, the wind strengthens again, and it's very hard work to the road for Baleshare (Baile Siar), the causewayed island that the next hostel overlooks. 30 to 40 km.
This hostel is excessively neat. After a cup of tea I bike over to Baile Siar which is wonderfully open, like Iceland or Tiree with dunes, green farmland and white beaches, and of course the statutory camper van plonked square at the road end. In one of the farms someone is playing a pibroch. On the causeway I pass a girl halfway along, with a newborn baby in a pram.
10 July. Baleshare to Lochmaddy, the long way round.
Wild and wet at 8; fair by 10 and the wind in the traditional SW. It hurls me along the northern circuit of North Uist. Moving with the wind, everything's quiet. Past Balranald, a sign to a picnic spot leads by a short track to Traigh Stir, and the finest of the sadly few beaches I get to. The strand is small, perfectly formed and north facing, so a good little swell is working in the offshore wind, which I duly sample. Three cyclists from the hostel arrive and do photos of me and the stick emerging from the deep.
Soon after, I turn the NW corner of the island and lose wind assistance. There are enormous milky tidal flats at Bhalaig, some dismal forestry, then the rain. It's an hour and a half pedalling into it, sometimes torrential, and I have to push the bike up the big hill before Lochmaddy. Should have changed into lycra, but there is nowhere to shelter the whole way. Check in to Lochmaddy hotel at 2.45 after 40 km or so, leaving a large puddle on the reception floor. An angler's haunt, so I suppose they're used to it!
Somewhat dryer, I find Lochmaddy Outdoor Centre and eventually Marie, who accepts the journey equipment - sticks, phone, camera and chargers - with equanimity. Some day soon another journeyer will carry them on, to the uttermost north at Point of Ness, and then south to the heart of Lochaber.
