Day 2: horrendous headwind

That was fun. The weather last night certainly didnt disappoint. My tent took a battering but withstood the test. Mostly. I was twice rudely awakened; once to put a tent peg back in and once as I realised I hadn’t closed a ventilation flap and rain was landing on my face. 

I got up to deal with the first one; I didn’t bother for the second. 

Despite everything I slept well, and woke early to much welcomed sun and a better taste of that view. 

Breakfast was despatched quickly; rehydrated porridge and a cup of black coffee (I’d forgotten to steal a load of milk sachets from yesterday’s ferry…) and I set about packing up.

Job done, I headed off and whizzed past the airport that I crawled past last night, thanks to a 40mph tailwind. 

Today’s route went across no less than 6 islands; Barra, Eriskay, South Uist, Benbecula, Grimsay and North Uist. Most of these are connected by causeways, but to get there I first had to leave Barra by ferry and head to Eriskay. 

Just 8km later I arrived at the ferry terminal and devoured a fantastic cup of coffee and black pudding pork roll, served by a Brummy who had grown bored of Birmingham and re-settled in the Hebrides. A stark contrast indeed. 

The ferry made surprisingly light work of the Barra Sound, despite the white topped waves all around. 

Light work is not what I then made of the next 25km. The road climbed away from the harbour and straight into a 40mph block headwind. I’d previously read how this section was fairly quick with the prevailing southwest wind usually pushing you along. Such was my luck that the wind was not prevailing, nor was it pushing me along. 

Climbing to the top of the moor, the rain started. Fortunately this coincided with me encountering a local museum. A museum of what exactly I still don’t know, but it had a cafe and looked warm, and that was all I was interested in.

A coke, rocky road and coffee later, I headed back out into the wind. 25km down, 95km to go.

The scenery, it has to be said, was quite spectacular. But the constant wind was becoming challenging. 

Plus, the rain showers were starting to get serious…

After 40km I stopped at a shop to refuel and realised that it had taken me over 4 hours since the ferry docked to get this far. I wasn’t even half way. I wasn’t even a third of the way..

I decided to cut out a few detours which I’d planned in to the route, and take a straight line (as much as I could) to my overnight stop. I also tacked east just to get some respite from the wind. It was a good decision, both for my average speed and for landscape to feast my eyes on. 

The final 11km were back into the wind, and I was back to a snails pace. My “campsite” comprised a wild camping spot at Clachan Sands which had been recommended by, well, just about everyone on the internet. My Garmin suggested that I turned left down a dusty path which looked like nothing more than a farm track. After a few hundred metres, the track turned behind some sand dunes, and opened out to this…

Incredible. I then took part in a wind versus tent battle, and lost. Twice. Third time lucky I got the thing up, chucked all my kit into it before the next shower came, and collapsed. 

I’ll sleep well tonight.