Day 8 - Sth Uist (Homore) / Benbecula / Berneray

Busy Bike Bus to Berneray

After breakfast, I found myself a nice little spot in the corner of the lounge and started to survey the good choice of books on the shelves. Note, the laid-back priority, sitting with a good book rather than doing some urgent washing. Chris was looking forward to another repack, a plenty of time to search for his cutlery pack. A shop was just a short distance down the road. So it was that we settled down for the day. Well, that was the plan until about half past nine! Why half past nine? That’s when the two girls from Glasgow made an appearance. They gaily informed us that a bus was leaving Homore at ten, and it went to the next hostel at Berneray. A quick check of the bus timetable not only confirmed the time, it was the only bus on the island that could take bikes. So it was from serenity to mad panic, we had half an hour to get loaded up and to get to the bus stop. Well, we did it, with minutes spare and with the bikes loaded into the rear rack. We now had a bus tour of Benbecula, and I am afraid to say the journey was nothing special. Of all the islands in the Outer Hebrides, North Uist is the bleakist. The north west part of the island having many flat-roofed concrete buildings belonging to the MOD. The island of Berneray is a different story, however, and is an exemplary little island.

Breezy Berneray and no room at the inn

By the time the bus arrived at Berneray it was rather full. A gathering of waifs and strays all seeking solid building shelter for the impending storm. There was a rush into the hostel by about twenty people to bag-a-bed for the night. As our bikes were hanging off the back of a bus, we were always going to be last. The winds were now getting quite strong, although it was dry. The hostel was full definately full. So we both pitched our tent in the lee of the storm, besides a roofless, ruined croft, the wind probably destroyed that this morning!

We did have a logistics problem in that we had no food. A poster in the hostel said there was a shop 'just down the road'. It was too dangerous to cycle, and we now had plenty of time, We walked 'just down the road'. We knew the shop shut at five. What we didn’t know was how far away it was. We never made it, by 5pm we still had no sight of it, so we turned back. The winds by now were very gusty, definately building up force for the coming night’s entertainment. We again, raided the leftover food cupboard in the hostel and managed to scrape together a reasonable meal. I wish I could meet the people who left this food (a big packed of ham) just to say a big 'thank-you'. This was the second time we had used this little treasure trove. Those heading home leave their excess food for the starving cyclists coming behind them.

The position of this hostel was even better than Homore, literally by the water’s edge and in the rapidly approaching storm it certainly was quite a sound and sight. Climbing into our sleeping bags we were both resigned to a sleepless night. A force nine gale in Southern England, would have inflicted severe damage and be national news. I must admit to a certain apprehension and packed all my kit should an evacuation be needed. Chris in his Wendy house? Well, he chose also to camp out rather than kipping on the hostels lounge floor. His tent door had no ties at the bottom, so it flapped noisily, but even that was soon drowned out by the wind. So it was we prepared for a rough night. Thankfully, Radio Scotland kept me company. Just after midnight came the shipping forecast. Can there be anything, in any language, to match the poetry of the shipping forecast? I doubt it.

Thers you and the radio. Its 0045 hrs, your day is over, now lulled by the haunting music of 'Sailing By'. You cannot help by lying there with a picture of the sea areas in your mind as the forecaster goes around the coast. Glad you in a tent and not in a boat. Hopefully secured to a solid piece of immoveable land.
Lying in a small tent less than 50 metres from a raging sea to experiencing the realities that those simple words describe. The thrashing of my little nylon tent in this sodden, wild environment against the full force of nature. That’s the poetry of it all, the unruffled calmness of the announcer sitting in a safe BBC studio in London. And me, in awe of the violence and vastness of it all

After the storm