By Nick Hodson, Friday 8th July 2005
The original plan `A' was for me to give up canoeing during my summer holidays on Barra, to book a room in a hotel, and then spend a couple of weeks preparing a few more books to put onto my literary website.
Last year I had Liz Sheridan stay here for a week, followed by a week with Charlie Skrine, and we had a fortnight of lovely weather and good canoeing. This year I changed my plan `A' because Liz decided she would like to come and have a week with me. But she had a family funeral on the day I was to leave, plus she had some academic matter to deal with in Newcastle, which is near the Scottish Border, so she could fit it in on her way north.
Thursday 30th June. Anyway, she turned up in Barra the day after I did, and I sounded out with her my plan `C' for our week together. My first new plan, `B', had been to take her canoeing and camping in the maze of small islands to the north-east of Barra, specifically to what we call "The Blue Lagoon", a hidden and very beautiful area between the islands of Hellisay and Gighay.
But during the morning of the day she arrived a new idea hit me. There is now a car ferry running directly from the north end of Barra to the island of Eriskay, the island on which Bonny Prince Charlie landed to start his campaign for the Throne, way back in the eighteenth century. And Eriskay is now joined to South Uist by a long causeway. So it would be feasible to load the car with what we needed, and drive with it via ferry and causeway to Uist, then to find somewhere on Uist to base ourselves, and explore the many small islands off the Uist east coast. As soon as she heard this plan Liz jumped at it.
There had been heavy storms during the winter, with sustained winds of over 130 mph, and the shed in which my canoeing gear is kept had been washed off its pedestal, which is a metre above the normal highest water level. We managed to get into it, and to extract the boats we needed, but their hatch covers had disappeared. We managed to track these down lying inside someone's van, and we stole them from it, having already told his wife that we planned to raid his van. We booked our places on the ferry, which I was shocked to learn would be at a cost of 53 pounds.
Friday 1st July. So early Friday we were all loaded up, and drove up to the north end of Barra, via a pub lunch at the Heathbank, to take our places in the queue for the ferry. It was then a question of finding somewhere suitable to base ourselves. The weather was fine, so we could take our time, we thought. The main road through South Uist is about as boring as any road in Britain, with featureless crofting land on both sides of it. But there were many turn-offs to the left, which led down to the Atlantic coast, and a few to the right.
The first of these right turns led down to nothing very promising. The second was labelled "To Loch Sgioport" and led past a large fresh-water loch that was set aside as a bird reserve. We followed the road and eventually came to a zig-zag unmade road that led down to an old disused jetty. But what a beautiful place it was. Immediately we decided to make it our base, and to put our tents up.
Not long after, we saw a rubber dinghy make its way to the old jetty, from a yacht. The people were in search of a place where their mobile would work. They had just heard the shipping forecast. Gale force 8 and 9 gusting to 10, imminent, and due to last for several days. They wanted to warn their relatives on the mainland that they would be delayed several days. We looked at the sunset sky. What utter nonsense we cried! It's a lovely sky. Liz went for a short paddle, about an hour and a half up to the head of the sea-loch, and back, and thoroughly enjoyed herself, except that on the outward leg she was paddling right into the bright evening sun (sunset about ten-twenty), and had to keep her eyes closed for much of the time.
Saturday 2nd. During the night it all came to happen. There was something that never happens: a deep depression stationary over Rockall, and due eventually to head off north. Torrential rain, as well as the wind. We had found a nice place in which to cook, a natural kitchen formed by the rocks, so we had breakfast, but that was the last meal we made there, as we made a windbreak area between the car and the tents, and always used that, with the disadvantage for my lack of mobility that it was on the ground.
We were not happy with the quality of the water that we had brought from the standpipe near my canoe shed, as it seemed very murky. The wind didn't seem so strong towards midday so we decided to leave the tents and drive back to the main road, and find a pub, have lunch in it, and refill our water bottles there. This worked well, and we found the Orasay Inn, about ten miles away by road, but only in fact about two miles as the crow flies. We had a nice lunch and a pint of heavy, enlivened by the fact that it was the first day at work for the very beautiful Bulgarian barmaid. She didn't understand such basic words as "beer", "heavy", "pint" and so forth. Nor did she know how to get the beer from the barrel into the glass. Luckily the cook came to the bar and things went easier after that. And then at one stage the Bulgarian sneaked up on me and removed my plate, my lunch half-eaten, my knife and fork not at all in the "finished" position, and my mouth full. I soon put a stop to that, explaining that British people always put their knife and fork side by side when they have finished. "I know," she said, which I thought a bit odd.
On our return we found that things had gone badly at our campsite. My tent, which had double pegging, and on which I had put extra guys made out of the ropes we tie the boats to the car with, had survived perfectly. But Liz's tent was down, as one of her poles had broken, and had made some holes in the fabric. Luckily I had a spare tent she could use, and we pitched it in a better place.
No canoeing that afternoon, as there were some very strong down-draughts from the surrounding hills, which would have made kayaking difficult, with the paddles being knocked out of our hands, or worse.
Things got steadily worse through the evening, and we sat together in the car till one o'clock, just after the shipping forecast, which seemed just as gloomy, if not more so, than it had twenty-four hours previously. Then I decided to go and die in the tent, as I would be more comfortable dying there, than in the car. It certainly was a rough old night.
Sunday 3rd. But by breakfast time things were just a little better. After breakfast Liz went for a long walk in the surrounding hills, despite at times scarcely being able to stand up because of the wind, and the gusts.
We had lunch and then later in the afternoon it appeared that we would be able to take our kayaks out for a nice paddle. As before there were these down-draughts, but we had the wind behind us in our outward direction (not usually a good idea) and then on the return leg there are a few tricks that old dogs like myself can employ to cheat the wind. So we got back, had a can of beer each, and cooked a nice nourishing dinner.
Monday 4th. Next day it was all much better, though a little windy at first. We put our boats in the water, having prepared a little collation for lunch, to take with us. First we visited the yachtsmen we had seen on the Friday evening, and had a ten minute chat to them, and then we headed out towards the mouth of the sea-loch, to where we had noticed from our camp-site, a narrow channel leading to a large lagoon. We paddled all round this lagoon, finding at one place the rocks festooned with large succulent looking mussels, collecting a couple of dozen of the best for dinner that night. We then found a lovely sunny corner out of the wind, where we landed and had our lunch. Afterwards I dozed off, to awake finding that I had slid down off the rock "armchair" I had been sitting on, and that I was lying with all my weight on my tail-bone. I won't say any more about it but it was most painful thereafter, and still is, as I write.
That lovely lagoon led on to another similar one, but a little smaller, and that in turn led back into the main sea-loch, Sgioport, so we made our way back by degrees on the opposite side of the loch.
In the evening some kind people who were fishing from the old jetty for mackerel, gave us a couple for our dinner, and these were well appreciated, and very filling. After that we settled down to cook our mussels, and eat them shell-in-shell, in the time-honoured fashion. It was a lovely evening meal, a beer to start with, those mackerel with some cous-cous, and the cockles. We went to bed very happy and very replete.
This might be the place to mention the bird and mammal life that enlivened our stay. Of course oyster-catchers, several gull species, and terns. We'd see plenty of eider-duck when we were away paddling. There was a thrush nesting near our camp, and when he/she had got a beak full of nice worms they would be taken back to the nest, and you could hear the fledgelings crying out for their share. There were also some very busy wrens right near the shore line. At one stage we saw a golden eagle, and several times a buzzard, on one of which appearances he was being mobbed by gulls. There was a raven with a wonderfully loud croak. There was the occasional seal in the sea-loch just below us, and one evening we watched an otter very busy there, just at sunset. On the way home we were astonished to see an owl perched on the fence by the road. Curiously we never saw curlew, though we did see or at least hear corncrake.
Tuesday 5th. We had hoped to get onto the 10:10 ferry back to Barra, but would have needed to start packing half an hour earlier than we actually did. In other words we missed it by half-an-hour. But that gave us an opportunity to go for a coffee and biscuits to "The Politician", which was named after the ship that sank off Eriskay during the war, loaded with a cargo of whisky and bank notes. In fact she went down more or less where the Eriskay-Uist causeway now is. Compton Mackenzie wrote the famous book "Whisky Galore" based on the event. I forgot to say earlier that the winter storms had done some severe damage to the causeway, which has not yet been repaired, and the carriageway is in several places quite badly broken up. But they have at least got round to coning these places off, even if they will be several months more psyching themselves up to actually repairing them.
When we finally got back to Barra, about 1 p.m. we went for a pint of heavy to "The Heathbank", and thereafter made our way out to a suitable place on the Bruarnish peninsular to launch for a three-hour paddle out to the tiny entrance between Gighay and Hellisay, to the Blue Lagoon. What a beautiful spot! We passed through the lagoon, during which Liz engaged some sheep that were occupying a rocky islet, in conversation. I don't know what they said, but it was possibly a request that she would take them to either of the larger islands that enclose the lagoon
The wind was getting up, for the return journey, but we made it safely, and once again the boats were loaded on the car, and we made our way back to the Isle of Barra Hotel, with its superb position overlooking the Atlantic on the west side of the island. Liz chose the most enormous steak for dinner, and I don't blame her.
Wednesday 6th. Liz had booked on a ferry leaving at 7 a.m., which for me meant jumping out of bed at six, getting her and all her bits and pieces into the car, then away off to the ferry. We were there in plenty of time, the only thing marring it being that it decided to rain just as we were fondly saying good-bye. There was a beautiful rainbow, so we switched from farewells to photography. Little did she know what was to happen the following day. She returned to London by train from the ferry-port at Oban, and presumably turned up for work the following day. She is a doctor working mostly at the London Hospital in Whitechapel. Despite not being a specialist in trauma, I have no doubt that she was working hard in the hospital that Thursday, as so many of the injured were being taken there.
After breakfast I put the boats away, did a few things in the town, then back to celebrate the winning of the 2012 Olympic bid and have lunch, spending the afternoon down at Loch St. Clair, watching the youngsters of the island being trained in windsurfing.
And how I did sleep that night, after all our adventures.
Best wishes to all readers, Nick, Friday 8th July 2005