Tuesday, August 19, 2014

Nearly Marooned!

We woke this morning to sunshine.  It was still a bit windy and coming straight from the north it kept the temps very low, as in about 14 degrees.

Still shorts weather (with bubble coat on top!) ...

After a walk along the beach we headed to the other side of the island to check out the lochs.

They hold the edge of the thatch down with rocks!

Elaine fed some of the (tame) wild ponies with some apples ...

The end of the track was a dead end. I waded into a puddle to make sure it wasn't a bloody great pot hole, which it wasn't, so we continued on ...

This is the point I should have walked ahead to check out!  It went down a very steep gravel hill followed by a hair pin bend, then over some rocks and finally ended up by the loch edge ...

It was a lovely view when we got down there, the only problem was ...

... there wasn't enough room to turn around!  I had to reverse it up the hill over the boulders and around the hairpin till we got to the top.  Elaine walked ahead picking a way so we didn't damage underneath the van.  It took a fair while to get to the top, I am just glad it wasn't raining as we would still be there!

We did meet a helpful Scotsman at the bottom who said. 'I didn't know they did these in 4WD!

After our little drama we headed off to the bottom of the island, stopping again at a lovely beach for lunch.

Elaine took the pic below of the pebbles on the wind blown sandy beach ...

Absolutely no-one around ...

All along the top of the beach people had piled up pebbles.....why?

Carrying on south past a ruined castle ...

It looks so much better with the sun shining ...

We then carried on and crossed the causeway to Eriskay island, the causeway was opened in 2001 ...

Right at the southern tip is the small ferry terminal for the isle of Barra.  At all the ferry terminals they have water and Elsan disposal plus toilets and showers.  The Islands make the motorhomers welcome ...

We also spotted an Eagle flying high above us ...

There is also a pub on the tiny island of Eriskay so we had to pop in for one, plus they have wifi so I can rattle this off!

Tomorrow we head back to the mainland via a 5.5 hour ferry crossing to Oban.  The sea is quite calm now so it should be a doddle compared to the force 8 gale coming over.

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