Journeying in the Outer Hebrides
The remoteness of the Outer Hebrides contributes to their charm and we allowed three days of driving to get there from Essex with our car boot packed with all sorts of clothes, boots, and emergency rations, just in case! We stopped overnight in Carlisle and Inverness and then drove across the Isle of Skye to the Uig ferry terminal on the far northwest coast. I do not travel well on boats, so I was thankful for the Skye Bridge (shown in the photo above) over Loch Alsh linking the mainland to the Isle of Skye.
The Uig ferry terminal was undergoing an upgrade at the time and looked more like a construction site. As we left the harbour, a rainbow formed behind us and we had a smooth sailing over the Minch to Tarbert on the Isle of Harris.
While Harris and Lewis are referred to as islands, they are in fact not separated by water at all! So you can travel between these 'islands' easily although driving around them is more problematic. You can drive around South Harris and the West Harris section in particular is very scenic. But the eastern part through the Bays is a little terrifying and you hope all the time that you will not have to reverse uphill and around a bend on a single track road to allow an oncoming car to pass. Lewis has no circular road system, so if you want to drive from the north west coast to the north east coast you must first drive south via Stornoway. When Sir James Matheson owned the island, he instigated a road building program, but eventually gave up! All that remains of what would have been the northern link in this circuit is The Bridge to Nowhere shown in the photo below.
Getting from Harris to the Uists requires a ferry from Leverburgh to the island of Berneray. I was surprised to read that Berneray was once considered part of Harris rather than North Uist and there was a long dispute over its ownership. Leverburgh ferry terminal is relatively small and the ferry has to navigate around many small islands on its way south. Your first instinct when you get out of your car and onto the main deck is to head outside for the view. But you soon experience the full force of the wind and head back inside!
Because the weather had delayed our ferry from Leverburgh by four hours, we did not have sufficient time to fully explore Berneray so drove over the causeway linking Berneray to North Uist and headed for the main town of Lochmaddy before it got dark.
We wandered down to the Lochmaddy ferry terminal which was quiet and peaceful on one side, and full of the noise of sheep on the other side. Huge container lorries were parked nearby and men were sorting out large flocks of sheep of all kinds, presumably ready for their ferry journey from North Uist to Skye.
It rained for much of our time in the Uists but this did not distract from the beauty of the countryside. It takes just over one hour to drive from Lochmaddy on North Uist, over Benbencula to Polochar at the bottom of South Uist, but we took two days. All three islands are thankfully linked by causeways. We stopped to explore historical sites along the way, although some we could not find! We found the Kildonan Museum in South Uist to be a useful watering hole with an interesting museum and gift shop. In South Uist we drove over many small lochs with signs warning of otters crossing the road, but we did not see any. Drivers here didn't seem quite as polite as those in Harris, so they didn't necessarily pull over into passing places as you might expect.
The next island south from South Uist is Eriskay and thankfully there is now a causeway and bridge linking the two islands. There are more islands still south of Eriskay but this was the furthest southern destination on our journey.
As with all the ferry terminals we experienced on this journey around the Outer Hebrides, Lochmaddy ferry terminal was stark and functional. We had to get here by 6 am for our journey back home via Skye and it is clear that the rhythm of life near ferry terminals is entirely measured by the comings and goings of the boats.
As the use of Gaelic has gained more acceptance, reading signposts can become problematic. While many will have place names in Gaelic and English, some, like this one in Harris, make no allowance for visitors. Who would know that Taobh Tuath is Northton, and that An t-Ob is Leverburgh? Still, why should travelling in the Outer Hebrides be made easy???
