Category: travel

Trip: Outer Hebrides

We went about as far away as we could without leaving the country: the Outer Hebrides in the extreme west of Scotland. I drove via Manchester, Fort William, Mallaig, Ferry to Lochboisdale. JJ flew via Glasgow.

The stretch of the Outer Hebrides we visited, while based in South Uist, from north to south: Berneray, North Uist, Benbecula, South Uist, Eriskay. All these we could get to without a ferry trip.

It was wonderful! It was not as cold as I expected — mostly 9C – 13C. Overcast and rained at least a bit every day, but we surprisingly got some unpredidicted very sunny spells. Mostly we would drive somewhere and go for a walk. There was a covid spike on the islands, as depopulated as they are, so what few businesses there were were mostly closed.

That was fine, we stayed in a little self-catering 2-person cottage on the edge of a tiny loch. It was near Askernish, which is home to an old golf course. We did walk across the golf course to get to the beach. (Scotland has excellent public access laws, with “the right to roam” having enshrined long-standing values into law by Scottish Parliament in 2003.) It was very windy and also raining, and we only saw one hearty golfer as we were finishing our hike. We saw a lot of cows on the course, though. Now that all British cows are terrifying, murderous hiker-stompers, we generally gave them a wide berth.

We had many excellent walks, saw some seals, many birds, and were very fortunate to see two otters! Here are some pics from the trip

ferry – our white hatchback is next to the RV

some dolphins playing in the wake of the ferry
arriving Lochboisdale
our little cottage

view out the front, in a rare sunny moment

We walked to and on many wonderful beaches. Nearly all of them required a considerable hike to access.
We went swimming at this one! In wetsuits. Was super fun. Cold at first but quickly got very comfortable.

I have a whole series of photos of JJ walking away from me.

Okay she’s not walking away from me here, she’s sitting down and trying to identify the birds we were looking at.
Also sitting.

Photosynthesis?

I didn’t have a lot of luck photographing wildlife, but got a few shots:

Highly elusive otter! Chomping on a fish.

Eriskay.

On Eriskay we saw Eriskay ponies! They were pretty mellow and amiable.

leaving before dawn on the ferry

Pano from one of the beaches on our last hike. We had alternated rain, sunshine, hail throughout the walk and in this shot you can see in the middle some rain stalking us, with sun on either side.