Daisy's travel diary: Outer Hebridean safari 2016

September 2016

We set off on our tour of the outer Hebrides. The Land Rover was packed up and ready to go.

Our first ferry was a quick five minute drive down the road from the house to catch the ferry from wemyss bay to Bute then colintrive. I was watching the bikes in the rear view mirror all the time because I wasn't at all happy with the bike rack, they were well tied down but kept bouncing all over the place, I had to keep stopping to tighten the straps.

Anyway we made it to colintrive then over the hill to connect with the portavadi to tarbet ferry. So far we've taken in three ferries and cut out around hundred miles. The ferries were great and as always the scenery was fantastic.

The next leg of the journe was Tarbet to Oban to catch the 1pm ferry to the isle of Barra.

I think this part of the journey was about six hours, ferry No 4.

Coming into castle bay on Barra was lovely, a small bay and small island. The view as you approach castle bay was of the castle of course and the Hebridean princess was ankerd just off the bay.

Off the ferry turn left and head for the campsite at borve.

All set up at the campsite, Land Rover and bongo tent up, we've got it down to a fine art now😊

land rover set up at Borve campsite

john and Daisy enjoying a cup of tea and a glass of red

Tomorrow we will cycle back to castle bay and over the hill to our first beach on Vatersay, there is a causeway to Vatersay now , so no need to get a boat.

Vatersay beach

Next day off to climb the hill at the back of castle bay village

this hill is steeper than you think and has no obvious path.

there is a small statue at the top of this hill, at least it looks small from the road you would think it to be about 15 inches tall, intact close up its more like 7ft tall.😂

can't remember her name

Daisy

Me, john

South east of Barra

Donald, the chap who owns the campsite and is also the post man on the south of the island spotted the photo of the hovercraft on the side of the land rover and said my mate Donald the post on the north of the island has one of those , i'll give him a call, I'm sure f]he would love to talk to you about it.

A Uh18

Uh18

sadly beyond repair

If anyone is interested you can follow my own hovering build by clicking on to

hoverwing.blogspot.co.uk

This machine was flown on the same beach the plane lands on

Barra airport

Barra

Daisy

The idea was to move up to the next islands known as the Uists

at this point the wether was turning quite nasty.

we had a bit of a rough crossing to south Uist. we got the land rover set up again but struggled with the tent.

i would just like to point out that the land is converted for us to sleep in and the tent is our kitchen area, so not as uncomfortable as it sounds.

only one night was spent on this island, i didn't like it at all, not my kind of landscape plus with such a change in wether i had lost my sense of hummer. we moved quickly off the Uist and onto the isle of Harris.

sorry no photos of Uist

Harris was lovely, a better feel altogether in my opinion.

still paranoid about the bikes on the bike rack i monitored them all the way to Tarbert the capital of Harris, (a small village) on arriving in Tarbert i looked in the rear view mirror and S**t no bikes the rack had collapsed and the bikes were dragging along behind us

oh well inanimate objects, what can you do.

Tarbert has a new distillery but the whisky isn't ready yet although the do make Gin, I'm not a Gin drinker however i can recommend it.