Falling in Love with the Hebridean Islands

Scotland is beautiful. The West coast is stunning. But nothing prepared us for the breath-taking Hebridean Islands.

The Hebrides are made up of the Inner Hebrides – Skye, Mull, Islay plus 76 other small islands – and the Outer Hebrides – Lewis and Harris, North Uist, South Uist, Barra plus around 100 other small islands and islets

We had visited Mull and loved Iona and Staffa but been left a bit cold by the rest of it. Our stress levels had gone so high on the narrow, winding roads that we had nearly decided to bypass the rest of the western islands. Thankfully we changed our minds as the next two weeks were to be the best so far of our Scottish adventure.

We hauled anchor from our quiet park-up spot in Plockton and headed straight for the Skye bridge. Not having to worry about ferries to get to Skye was helpful but we definitely needed to book one to get any further. So far we had failed to find a ferry anywhere to the Outer Hebrides with a slot available for the Mog but ploughed on in blissful optimism.

The weather was dismal – rain, wind, dark skies – but the Skye bridge was open and we found ourselves once again on the western islands.

First impressions of Skye – good. Wide roads, lovely scenery, pity about the rain.

We started by heading south to Armadale Castle, a ruin dating back to the 19^th Century, now so unstable you can only see it from behind a fence. But there was a museum and the gardens were supposed to be lovely.

We spent hours in the museum hiding from the rain and learning all about the history of the Clans and the build up to the fateful battle of Culloden. I went around the display twice to get the timeline in my head, chatted to the manager of the museum for a while and finally felt I had a handle on at least some of the complex and fascinating history of this country.

By the time we had finished our education the rain had settled into a damp mist and we ventured into the beautiful gardens

Before finally making it to the ruins of the castle itself

The castle is in three sections, the oldest dating back to around 1790 and the newest as recent as 1855

Peering in through the arch of the newest wing it was quite eery to see the rusted remains of what was once a magnificent sweeping staircase

We tried to have lunch at the café in the grounds but it was closed. The inside of the café building was impressive though, apparently the old stables

The rain was making it difficult to do much more and it was already mid-afternoon so, after a surprisingly lovely lunch at a community centre, we drove to a wonderful, quiet aire by the Tormore Forest where we parked up for the evening, read for a bit, dozed for a bit and rang my Mum – warm and dry in our cozy little home

The next morning was no better. I waited until 8:45am before trying to do my training but still got absolutely soaked. We drove to the Sligachan Old Bridge. We were sure that the views could have been lovely

And in some places we could see that they were

Especially when we saw a waterfall on the side of the road and pulled over to take a closer look

The bridge itself was very picturesque

And we forced ourselves to walk up to the statue of two local mountaineering heros

But by this time, despite wearing our waterproof jackets, we were soaked through and my camera was worryingly wet. So we drove the 100 metres from the car park to the hotel across the road where we finally managed to dry out over lunch.

As we waited for our food I checked the ferry web-site again and was excited to find a space had come free on a ferry to North Uist in a week’s time – perfect. I quickly booked us on with a return a week later. Now we were committed!

We planned to drive slowly north and east around Skye then head over the top of the island and drop down to the town of Uig where the ferries departed. But before all that we were going west to Talisker Bay.

The roads were narrow with passing places but not busy and very straight so we could see up ahead for miles. It was easy driving, if a little hard on BigMog’s clutch which was starting to cause us concern.

By the time we arrived at the car park near the bay, the rain had almost stopped and we had an easy walk for a mile through farmland to reach the beach

In the distance was a pretty waterfall

And the bay itself was lovely

We popped into the nearby Talisker Distillery to have a wander around their shop

And marvel and the price of everything!

Although we decided against making any rash purchases…

Instead we settled in for the evening in a community car park which welcomed motorhomes to camp overnight overlooking the loch and the pier

As we sat on the steps enjoying a break in the rain, we were besieged once again by locals and tourists alike admiring the Mog and wanting to hear about our journey. The community volunteer who came to collect our money was fascinating to talk to and stayed chatting for nearly an hour.

The next day we woke up to find the skies were clearing and the sun was out. I actually enjoyed my early morning training for the first time in days

Taking advantage of the dry weather we drove up to the Fairy Pools for a beautiful, long winding walk to see a cascade of waterfalls and pools coming down from the mountains

This is one of the main attractions on Skye so it was full of people doing the same walk

But it didn’t matter, everyone was enjoying themselves after so much rain

The car park at the Fairy Pools was on a steep slope which would make cooking lunch rather tricky so instead we set off in the direction of Portree, the capital of Skye, and found a layby enroute that made for a perfect lunch stop with gorgeous views over the mountains

Once in Portree we parked up in the town centre car park and made a point of chatting to the parking attendant. We had been forewarned that the people of Skye get a little fed-up with tourists in motorhomes parking wherever they like and it is all too easy to accidentally find yourself with a big parking fine in a council-run car park for the slightest infringement. The attendant started off a little frosty but soon warmed to us and gave us sound advice on the various rules. Once he had confirmed that we were parked properly we thanked him, paid for our ticket and wandered into town. It was his advice to buy two tickets if we couldn’t fit all our wheels into one bay that saved us a couple of weeks later in a very tight car park in Inverness, every day is a learning day!

Portree is another small town with not a lot to do but it is very pretty

And the harbour is lovely

We popped into the local Coop for some supplies but then I made a very brave decision. I have only ever trusted the same hairdresser to cut my hair for the last 20 years (a regular reader of the blog who some of you may have noticed sometimes comments on my hair, hi Sarah!). But things had gone badly astray here in Scotland and my hair had got out of control. So I took my courage in my hands and walked into a hairdresser in town with only a few Google reviews to go by…

Not bad! I confessed to Sarah afterwards and sent her this photo – she was very complimentary and I felt a whole lot better for getting rid of the birds nest.

We had heard that the roads from Portree around the north of Skye are fabulous and their reputation turned out to be very well deserved. We drove mile after mile of staggering beauty

We could see for miles ahead of us, one minute mountains soared all around

The next minute we looked down on craggy, windswept lochs

I was going dizzy with it, we were being bombarded from all angles.

It was around about this time in our trip that I realised how happy I was, how much I had started to enjoy life again, how all the stresses and strains of the build had started to fall away without me even noticing the change. And the Mog was starting to grow on me. Our lives were very different from Africa in Henry but I had finally settled into our new life and embraced it.

The only problem with this part of Skye was the difficulty in finding places to park up for the night and it was already getting late. Multiple potential laybys and parking spots went by that we couldn’t fit into or were already taken. Eventually we found a spot large enough for us and pulled in for the night. We were right on the road and other cars were zooming past very quickly, but we had little option.

The view was lovely

But it was probably the noisiest and least safe park-up we had had so far

Towering over us was The Storr

So the next morning we drove a half a mile further on to the official car park, where the Mog was a little safer, pulled our rucksacks on and headed up the steep climb

As at the Fairy Pools there were a lot of people doing the climb, Skye is a very popular place and I could now completely understand why

It had been a long and steep climb and we were rather pooped by the time we got back to the Mog. So when we arrived at the Lealt Falls car park and found the walk to the viewpoint was only a couple of hundred yards away it was a relief

Our next stop was even easier – Kielt Rock and Mealt Falls. There was a huge car park and a pristine fence to lean over and take photos of the huge granite rocks

And the water cascading down from the sheer cliff edge

Although it did occur to me that Skye was maybe spoon-feeding its tourists just a little.

We made a quick lunch in the Mog before leaving the car park, trying desperately to dodge the people who kept coming up to admire him and ask for a look around.

After an hour or so of driving more fabulous roads we parked up in another layby for the rest of the day

It was only 2:30pm but the climb up The Storr had taken all our energy and we wanted to put our feet up and take it easy for a while.

The rocky outcrop that we had chosen for our night’s stay was battered by winds coming off the sea and the roaring reverberating around us was almost deafening. My morning training was a challenge, I had to put weights on my mat to stop it flying off over the cliff edge!

From where we were parked we could see the ruins of Duntulm Castle and decided to walk up to take a look. It was a good way to get ourselves going early in the morning

But it was so cold and blustery, even the lambs were tucked into the rocks hiding from the wind

From there it was a short drive to Fairy Glen, a strange landscape and a geological wonder – sandstone rocks formed by glacial landslides, sculpted into unique patterns by erosion

At the centre is a high rock known as the ‘Castle’

James climbed to the top of it but it was too tight a squeeze between the rocks for my claustrophobia to allow

Skye is packed full of weird and wonderful things to do. We came across St Columba’s island – he of Iona Abbey fame – a mysterious and eery island in the middle of a river where Clan Chiefs and Knights Templar from the 11^th to the 15^th Centuries are said to be buried. Accessed over a small footbridge hidden deep within the woods

Some of the tombstones are over 900 years old

We then stumbled on the fascinating Giant Angus MacAskill museum where we learned all about Angus MacAskill who was 7’9” tall and, rather ironically, became a close friend of General Tom Thumb during his life

These are life-size models of the two of them

And all the items laid out in the museum were his real belongings

The museum is run by his grandchildren but sadly we didn’t get to meet them.

We were in the pretty village of Dunvegan and we wandered through, buying a few bits and bobs at the local store and then, after a couple of false starts, we found a perfect place to park-up for the night in the middle of the moors

Nearby Dunvegan Castle is the seat of the Clan Macleod and parts of it date back to the 1200s. We didn’t think it was a pretty castle

Although the inside was lovely

And the gardens were beautiful, with a water garden, walled garden and forest walk

Our next stop was a coral beach. We parked up in a very small and muddy car park and walked a 2.2 mile round trip to the beach itself

It was a lovely walk although the beach itself wasn’t spectacular

And we never did find out what this castle was in the distance as we walked back

We had hoped to stay overnight in the car park but found a sign saying no overnight stays allowed so drove on towards Uig until we found our most remote camping spot yet. In the middle of nowhere with the moors stretching to the horizon in every direction

I was up early the next morning to start my training and soaked in the peace and quiet as the sun slowly rose over my training mat

After a leisurely breakfast we headed for an actual campsite for the first time in weeks. This one was right next to the ferry port and we spent the whole day filling our water tanks, recharging the composting toilet, showering and doing all our laundry. It may not have been warm and sunny but the wind dried our clothes on the line in no time.

Getting the ferry the next day bound for the Outer Hebrides, we were as excited as if we were leaving the country. There is an aura of mystery that shrouds these remote and sparsely populated islands and I couldn’t wait to get there.

As we disembarked onto the island of North Uist I felt as though we should be showing our passports and driving on the other side of the road, everything seemed very different. The air was clearer, the water sparkled and the houses seemed to have come from a different era

And there was a mackerel…don’t ask!

We drove towards the northern most point of the island and stopped off at Dun an Sticir, an archaeological site where stone causeways lead from islet to islet

And from there we pressed on up to Clachan Sands. We had intended to just stay for a short walk along the beach but as we reached the cliff edge we were lost for words

Were we still in Scotland or had we been transported to some Caribbean island? It was stunning

We parked up and stayed for the rest of the day

The walk along the beach was windswept and remote and absolutely fabulous

After dinner I wobbled across the rocks back down to the beach to look through the rock pools

The whole place was idyllic

And this was just the start. They say that the beaches on Lewis and Harris are the best but we always prefer to choose the path less trodden so our trip was to be south from North Uist through Benbecula, South Uist, Barra and Vatersay. If these beaches can be topped anywhere in the world I would be amazed.

From Clachan Sands we headed for Traigh lar beach

The sun had come out and the skies were blue – it was perfect

We walked for miles along the pristine, white sands and there was literally no-one else there. I took my boots and socks off, paddled in the crystal clear sea and dug my toes into the cool, soft sand

A little further down the road we passed Scalpaig Tower, a little folly built in the 19^th Century

Before driving the steep incline up towards a military radar station, just beneath which is a viewpoint where on a clear day you can see the famous island of St Kilda far off on the horizon

And as days go, you couldn’t get much clearer than this

We had found an aire on a nearby farm where we set ourselves up to enjoy the sunshine in the peaceful countryside

It was a red letter day – we put our chairs and awning out and sat outside for the rest of the afternoon. I even treated myself to a glass of wine at 5pm and those of you who know my drinking tolerances will not be surprised to hear that I was fast asleep by 6pm!

The days were speeding by with so much to see and do there was hardly time to catch our breath. The next day was no different, with us hopping from site to site as we travelled south. We started at the Barpa Longais chambered cairn but found it had been closed due to a rock fall inside

So we carried on to see the statue of Hercules the Bear in the Langass Woodland. Hercules was a grizzly bear and an actor in the 1980s who escaped during filming of an Andrex advert in Benbecula and was found 3 weeks later 20 miles away right here in these woods

The walk through the woods was lovely but the most interesting part of the visit was when we realised that James’ Dad had met Hercules many years ago whilst working as a landscape gardener at Pebble Mill!

From there we went to Langass Lodge where we had the best meal we’d had in ages – I tried the local dish of Cullen Skink followed by lemon posset and it was delicious.

Next stop was the Sanctuary Sculpture which looked interesting in the photos but turned out to be very small

Although the view in front of it was lovely

We pressed on and crossed a narrow causeway onto the tiny island of Baleshare where we pulled up at the beach and looked out over a wild and windswept coastline. There wasn’t much to do there though so we returned to North Uist and the Trinity Temple – the ruins of an important church built around 1200

We wandered around for a while taking in all the history and trying to find the oldest gravestone.

As we continued south we eventually found ourselves leaving North Uist and crossing another causeway onto the island of Benbecula. We headed for a nearby town where we found a supermarket to top up our food supplies.

In keeping with the general feeling of being somewhere remote and foreign, this supermarket made us feel even more as though we were back in Africa – the stock was rather quirky and many of the shelves were empty.

A mile or two down the road we found a place to park-up for the night overlooking a beach. It wasn’t ideal, the ground was bumpy and the beach a little smelly but it would be fine for the night. Or so we thought! At 7:30pm a car drove up to us beeping its horn and someone knocked loudly and persistently on our door. James went to see what the problem was and was faced with a very angry man claiming to be acting on behalf of the landowner and telling us we shouldn’t be there. It seemed odd that, in a country that allows camping anywhere on public land, there were no signs to say that this grass verge was private property and stranger still that our park-up apps all said this was a good spot with dozens of positive entries.

But we were clearly not welcome so we dragged ourselves back into the cab and drove nearly 20 miles back to Baleshare and the windswept beach where the public car park fronted right onto the shore with lovely views. It was a good decision, we had a much needed, peaceful and undisturbed nights sleep

Unfortunately that meant we were now 20 miles away from the North Uist distillery (contrary to its name, actually on Benbecula) where we had a tour booked the next morning. Even more unfortunately we accidentally left a little bit late and were at risk of missing the tour. James was driving a bit faster than we would normally go and the roads were narrow and cambered. At one point the Mog wobbled and veered towards the edge, he let out a small wimper and my fingernails dug into my seat. But we were fine, James deftly steered us back onto the straight and narrow and our first UniMog disaster was avoided.

The North Uist distillery is housed in a historic old building and we learnt more about the history of that and the local community than we did about whisky! They are a very new distillery, so new in fact that they have not yet produced their first barrel

In the meantime, whilst their whisky matures, they are making their name producing wonderful gins

It was all very interesting and as we were the only ones on the tour our guide let us have a small taster of their new spirit which is what they call the base whisky before it has been fermented for three years in the barrel

They also let us taste some of their gins. Wow!

The shop was beautifully done

And we ended up spending an absolute fortune on every type of gin going along with a few extra treats…

I was a little drunk by midday.

We had hoped to spend the afternoon taking it easy on Kilauley beach but it turned out to be closed as the nearby military base was on ops

The farmer who owned the car park did have some highland coos though which were cute

We carried on to the ruins at Tobha Mor, stopping off at the ‘Our Lady of the Isles’ statue

The ruins themselves are of a series of old monasteries, chapels and churches. Whilst there have been buildings on this site since the 6^th Century, these ruins probably only date as far back as the 1200s

After wandering around the site for a while we headed back to the Mog where we met a couple on their bikes. We started chatting and they recommended an aire a few miles back up north on an RSPB reserve. We looked it up and it sounded good.

When we arrived we found ourselves surrounded by a gorgeous landscape of remote wetlands

Not so remote that other motorhomes hadn’t found it though! All the spaces were taken up with around eight other campers but after agreeing with everyone that we wouldn’t be in anyone’s way we were able to park-up on the verge overlooking the grassy machair plains

I got chatting to a woman travelling on her own and then the couple on their bikes arrived and we started talking to them as well. They asked for a tour around the Mog so we invited them in after we’d finished dinner and by the time they had returned the favour and we had talked about everything from motorhomes to full-time travelling to family and anything else we could think of, it was late into the evening.

A couple of bird-watchers passed by the next morning as I was training and offered to let James and me look through their incredible monocular. They told us that there was a beautiful beach with a pier 3 miles down the track into the reserve so we headed that way after breakfast.

As we drove, the views on both sides were gorgeous

And we even found wild horses grazing along the roadside

When we arrived at the end of the road we found yet another stunning place and, as always, we were the only people there

As we gazed down into the crystal clear waters James spotted jellyfish swimming their way along the loch

There are not enough words or photos that can do justice to this part of the world. We had the weather broadly on our side and the midges were thankfully staying away so far – so we really were seeing Scotland at its best.

But the Hebrides really don’t need any help, they are absolutely and endlessly spectacular. It was as though the rest of the world was a million miles away.