>>>...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! 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...
Great report and images.
You do have to be careful with Scotland... there are mainland areas too that fit your description of Benbecula and Stornoway. Back in the 80s we arrived at a Sutherland cottage which was a post and barbed wire surrounded bleak grey place in the middle of endless moorland... hardly a tree in sight... rusting cars, vans and tractors surrounded the place in the adj fields. The local large village very much fitting the Stornoway description too.
We left in under 24hrs and found somewhere much better rather than waste the week.
For our needs experience has taught us to find tucked away pockets of remoteness which still have reasonable access to food shopping, fuel, eateries etc. There are lots of such places and we've refined the art of finding them very much aided by the internet more recently where Google maps, streetview, other folks Photobucket images/Youtube videos all help to build a picture of the area. Back in the 80s you often just had a close crop picture in a brochure of the cottage front and that was all you knew until arriving at 3pm on the Sat takeover.
The white beaches and their blue water are for us the highlight... if the sun comes out even better! I've probably said here before we take an inflatable boat (proper Zodiac, not a toy) so we can find such beaches with no road access where, apart from the odd sea kayak explorer, you are alone.
Like here...
i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg72/SealgairC420/CaolisportBeach2.jpg
i245.photobucket.com/albums/gg72/SealgairC420/NimrodSecretBeach.jpg
Last edited by: Fenlander on Tue 2 Jun 15 at 09:30
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