Well, came back yesterday from our jaunt to the Outer Hebrides in the tent and no divorce lawyer is required!
Spent two nights in Barra in a lovely ex-croft right on the waterside. Barra is a lovely island with its unique airport on the beach. We were woken on Monday morning by a police car racing past the site with its blues n twos on. The site owner who had lived in Barra all his life had never seen this before! Anyway it turns out that there had been a break in at the café at the airport! No big deal but the café also doubles up as the check in and security! Watched a plane land and then take off again, right up and close! Also took a drive over to Vatersay which has the most stunning beaches I have ever seen in my life. If only it wasn’t blowing a gale and 10 degrees then it would have been more Paradise like!
We then spent 2 nights in Benbecula, what a god-awful god-forsaken place!! Just sparse marshland for miles in all directions, a hellish wind blowing through it permanently and very few trees to be seen! Had chosen to stay here as it was roughly half way up the OH but would gladly recommend to anyone to drive right through.
Then two nights in Stornoway. For a “major†port route and lots of tourists, the town itself is crying out for someone to take it by the scruff of the neck and bring it up to scratch. I get the bit that this is their town and they don’t want to turn it into something resembling Blackpool or whatever. However lots of the industry is fishing and we were wanting to go for a meal that would have lots of fish options, all locally caught, maybe processed through the local Smoke house but nope – there was nothing available. Ended up having a meal in the Chinese restaurant which actually happened to be one of the nicest Chinese meals I have ever hand. The mixed platter for starters had the usual prawn sesame toast – but this is the first time of having this that the “toast†bit was actually jam packed with prawns!
Tent wise, our Vango Icarus 500 stood up to the challenge. Yes, someone’s description of “trying to sleep in a huge crisp packet whilst someone scrunches it all night†was pretty accurate. We picked this tent so that we could stand up in it which of course made it far more vulnerable in the wind however the fibreglass poles have some amount of flexibility in them. Having said that, I think every other camper we met had a much lower down tent!
Saw some strange motoring sights, none more than the rusting Ford Transit sitting in one field (it would appear no one scraps vehicles in the OH they just leave them in their fields) but this Transit looked like it had been left to rust away and you could see all the lines of rust working across it as if it was being eaten away in front of your eyes. I swear one day every door and panel will just fall off the chassis simultaneously!
A huge number of cyclists in the island all doing the camping bit and cycling from one end to the other. We had a car full, boot full and back seat full, and these folk had all their possessions including their tent and sleeping bags in a couple of pannier bags on their bikes!
Have taken lots of photos and some video, if I can remember what website it is that I have used for sharing photos before then I will put some up.
|
