From Barra to Eriskay and South Uist

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Woke up this morning feeling quite rough with mild cold symptoms, mainly a sore throat. I suddenly felt very hot and it was refreshing to open up the tent.

We decided to head down to Barra airport's cafe for some breakfast, toasted sandwich. Wished I'd ordered the Scotch pancakes Andy had as they looked amazing.

After breakfast and packing up, we realised that we had missed the ferry we wanted from Aird Mhor to Eriskay so we hung about watching the planes land on the beach.

We then headed to the jetty at Aird Mhor, just down the road and chilled ut in the cafe with some lentil & veg soup, tea and cake chatting to the bloke who ran the cafe. There we met another cycle tourer who had travelled south down the islands.

We then took the 40 minute ferry over to Eriskay, a tiny little island consisting mainly of very steep rock. It was a pretty intense climb on the bike to the top of the rock but one we got there the view was pretty good.

t was all descent from there on to the causeway which linked Eriskay to South Uist, probably about a mile or so of causeway.

It was just after getting on to South Uist that I actually fell off my bike while not actually cycling. I had just stopped and was standing over my bike when the weight of the panniers pulled me down to the ground - oops, and in full view of a bus!

We carried on cycling northwards up the west coast of South Uist which was predominantly flat with views to the east of the mountains. We stopped off at the Pollacher stone, which is apparently 5000 years old.

Saw several birds of prey including golden eagles as we cycled. Stopped off at a co-op for supplies (at which point I had a very dry mouth and sore throat).

We spotted on the OS map a big patch of dunes and machair, pretty much on the same latitude as Lochboisdale to the east where we decided to pitch.

Cycling Stats:

1 hour 22 minutes cycling
12.2 miles (from Eriskay, not including Barra)
Avg speed 8.9mph
Top speed 27.9mph

strong headwinds

Pitched up near a pair of oystercatchers who gave a bit of a nature show by running away from their nest on the ground trying to draw attention to themselves rather than their nest. Obviously this was not the reason we pitched there,we would rather have pitched further away so not to disturb them. This was the point where oystercatchers became Andy's favourite bird ever. Sadly these dunes were also home to burnt out cars and a kid was tearing up the land on his motorbike. Poor oystercatchers

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Photos

Barra Airport
the planes land and take off on the beach

Barra Airport
the main BA flight from Glasgow, the flight times are dictated by the tides

Eriskay
from the top of Eriskay

Eriskay to South Uist
cycling the causeway between Eriskay and South Uist

Pollacher Stone, South Uist
the apparently 5000 year old Pollacher Stone, South Uist

South Uist
Our pitch on the South Uist machair