Saturday May 3rd - South Uist and Barra

I hoped the wind might die down overnight but if anything it got stronger and again kept me up by constantly rippling through canvas. At least Friday had mostly been quite sunny but I got up at about six o'clock to find an overcast and rainy Saturday morning awaiting. After breakfast I packed up, hopped on the bike and rode on into the windy drizzle.

I took it a small bite at a time, allowing myself a stop after every mile and constantly counting down to the next junction or landmark. The day was grey and the landscape quite flat (which is why I don't have any pictures to post for that portion of the journey) The wind picked up an easterly component for a while as I neared Eriskay, which presented a new problem with sidewinds potentially blowing me into the path of other traffic on the single-track road. I would occasionally swerve intentionally as they approached, to alert them of the risk.

Eriskay came into sight, the connecting causeway a grey ribbon of stone and tarmac across the sea. For a moment the road looped northwards and I had a brief sweet reminder of what it was like to have the wind at your back. The causeway wasn't as bad as it could have been, the stone walls at the edge taking away some of the wind's impact. The road leading off it was a bland grey strip of uphill and headwind, and I got off to use my magic 24-inch gear. I caught sight of a fluorescent yellow dot ahead on the left side of the road and wondered whether it was another insane cyclist heading south, but when I caught up it turned out to be a man on foot.

Eriskay was both hilly and exposed to strong gusts of wind but I finally made it to the ferry port and spent a blissful wind-free hour in the waiting room chatting up two middle aged ladies on a walking trip, who were coming the other way and waiting for a bus.

The ferry ride was pretty extreme. We headed southwards to begin with, hitting huge west-bound waves at an angle, tossing the ship into the air and smashing it back down onto the sea's surface, triggering car alarms and sending spray high into the air. We passengers exchanged nervous looks while the crew strolled around without a care in the world, assuring us this was nothing unusual. They were probably right, the boat turned to the west and, with the sea on our side, we carried on more calmly to Barra.

The road around Barra is circular, and I had to get from the north to the south end, giving me a choice between the east or west coast. Apparently the west is a bit more scenic but on a day like Saturday I didn't think that would matter much - number one priority was to be more sheltered. I was advised that the east coast is more rocky and therefore a bit less exposed, and also a bit shorter, so decided on that. This partially worked, some bits were sheltered and others very exposed.

Towards the end there was one more huge climb for which I got off and pushed, before an equally enormous descent took me down to Castlebay.

I stayed at the hostel, everything clean and quite modern. The hostel was quite busy and I shared a dorm with Maireadh, an Irish lady also cycling alone (again, northbound). She told me she was married with two kids, worked for the tax office in Dublin and liked to get away on her own on the bike a couple of weeks each year.

The weather was still horrible when I went to sleep that night, but I was relieved to be indoors, having completed my southbound journey. I was leaving the Outer Hebrides the next morning, which meant a change of direction and hopefully a change of weather.

Friday May 2nd - The silly direction

The original journey plan involved travelling from south to north on the Outer Hebrides. This was a carefully researched decision based on prevailing winds, which can be pretty strong on these exposed islands. A wise decision, you might think...

Perhaps not such a wise decision to completely revise my journey plan a couple of days into the trip, and decide that I'd be going North to South instead, my only concession to the prevailing winds being "Oh well... how bad can a headwind be?"

The answer made itself clear over the next couple of days. There had been no wind on Harris, but during the night at Berneray my tent started flapping like crazy and I woke up every couple of hours thinking "I hope that's going in the right direction" and "I hope the tent pegs hold out". My position by the shore was fairly exposed.

Unfortunately, the wind was in pretty much exactly the wrong direction and Friday saw me struggle for fifty miles across mostly flat and exposed landscapes, directly into it. However, I did meet some nice little ponies.

My morale dropped to approximately zero at around 35-40 miles, especially when oncoming cars sped towards me along the single track road with very little consideration. It didn't help that the landscape was a bit flat, mostly on not particularly beautiful roads, and at those kind of speeds I get bored quite easily. That's why I'm a cyclist and not a walker.

The advantage of choosing a silly direction to cycle in is that you tend to meet slightly more sensible cyclists coming the other way (Or perhaps I'd rather meet the silly ones, I'm not sure). I met a group of ten or fifteen riders coming the other way on North Uist, out of whom two ladies stopped to chat, they turned out to be from the CTC sections of Aberdeen and Bristol.

Huge dark clouds threatened for a couple of hours on South Uist, but it never actually rained. I found a Co-op on Benbecula and stocked up on doughnuts and Snickers bars for sugary energy comforty snacky purposes.

I finally made it to Howmore, another of the Gatliff hostels, absolutely knackered. The hostel consisted of a number of blackhouses, some containing the dorms and shared area, one in use as an impromptu bike shed, and several tents parked among the ruins of others. I found an empty spot (again, quite exposed), pitched up and dived into dinner, which was local flaky smoked salmon with broccoli and rice and was absolutely fantastic. The other campers all turned out to be cyclists and we sat around in the hostel chatting into the evening before I retired to my tent and checked the pegs were stuck firmly in the ground in readiness for another windy night.