Western Isles Cycle Tour
A quick turnaround on Saturday, before another adventure with Jo!! We got an early train to Oban, had time to look around for a couple of hours, and then a ferry crossing to Barra (Castlebay) - the journey took up most of Sunday :) Barra is tiny so we set off on arrival (8:30pm) to use the remaining daylight - made it up to the north side near the airport and got a great campspot.
Monday: Barra Airport is cool - the planes are scheduled around tide times as planes actually land/take-off on the beach! Ferry Crossing to Eriskay, and the real cycling began... the weather was great and we'd decided to go pretty far on the first day - most people had told us there wasn't so much to see in the Uists so better to leave more time for Harris/Lewis. We had a lunchstop at Howmore (South Uist)which was really pretty, and then carried on through Benbecula and North Uist to Berneray. The hostel was amazing - 2 old whitestone buildings with thatched roofs, situated right on the beach. Campers can use the facilities for £6 at the GHHT hostels - great deal!
Tuesday: I had a run around the beach & up a small hill in the morning, before we set off to get the ferry to Harris. Unfortunately the weather started to change & for the rest of the day it was a mixture of heavy rain, beautiful sunshine, wind, rain, more sunshine, etc etc - typical Scottish weather! We had a fun time though (despite much more hills than the previous day!) and thought that Harris was beautiful. We went up the west coast to begin with, then inland to Tarbet before continuing North-East to a place called Kershader.
Wednesday: We set off in the rain but it cleared up quickly and turned out to be a pretty nice day. We headed west across Lewis to the standing stones at Callanish (very impressive), briochs, and the blackhouse museum at Garenin. Lots of historic buildings/ruins with really interesting stories about typical island lifestyles. There was another GHHT hostel at the blackhouses so we pitched our tent in an old ruin & went for a walk up the hill - the view were amazing & there was a really great sunset over the beach & cliffs!
Thursday: Leaving most of our stuff at the blackhouse hostel, we biked up to the Butt of Lewis (the very top!)..there were some great views on the way up, but the top itself was a bit boring :) The way back the wind was against us the whole way - it felt like 5 or 6 RPM classes back-to-back :)
Friday: We followed a route along a disused railway line back to Stornoway and jumped on a ferry back to Ullapool. We finally had a seafood meal (had been looking for somewhere the last few days but there seems to be a distinct lack of restaurants or shops on Lewis - Tesco Direct is apparently the way to go!) before getting on the bike bus back to Inverness. Such a fun trip!!
Monday: Barra Airport is cool - the planes are scheduled around tide times as planes actually land/take-off on the beach! Ferry Crossing to Eriskay, and the real cycling began... the weather was great and we'd decided to go pretty far on the first day - most people had told us there wasn't so much to see in the Uists so better to leave more time for Harris/Lewis. We had a lunchstop at Howmore (South Uist)which was really pretty, and then carried on through Benbecula and North Uist to Berneray. The hostel was amazing - 2 old whitestone buildings with thatched roofs, situated right on the beach. Campers can use the facilities for £6 at the GHHT hostels - great deal!
Tuesday: I had a run around the beach & up a small hill in the morning, before we set off to get the ferry to Harris. Unfortunately the weather started to change & for the rest of the day it was a mixture of heavy rain, beautiful sunshine, wind, rain, more sunshine, etc etc - typical Scottish weather! We had a fun time though (despite much more hills than the previous day!) and thought that Harris was beautiful. We went up the west coast to begin with, then inland to Tarbet before continuing North-East to a place called Kershader. 
Wednesday: We set off in the rain but it cleared up quickly and turned out to be a pretty nice day. We headed west across Lewis to the standing stones at Callanish (very impressive), briochs, and the blackhouse museum at Garenin. Lots of historic buildings/ruins with really interesting stories about typical island lifestyles. There was another GHHT hostel at the blackhouses so we pitched our tent in an old ruin & went for a walk up the hill - the view were amazing & there was a really great sunset over the beach & cliffs!
Thursday: Leaving most of our stuff at the blackhouse hostel, we biked up to the Butt of Lewis (the very top!)..there were some great views on the way up, but the top itself was a bit boring :) The way back the wind was against us the whole way - it felt like 5 or 6 RPM classes back-to-back :)
Friday: We followed a route along a disused railway line back to Stornoway and jumped on a ferry back to Ullapool. We finally had a seafood meal (had been looking for somewhere the last few days but there seems to be a distinct lack of restaurants or shops on Lewis - Tesco Direct is apparently the way to go!) before getting on the bike bus back to Inverness. Such a fun trip!!
posted by Mhairi
1 Comments:
Looks like you had a great trip, glad you didn't get the monster headwind. But you really should stop copying us ;-)
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