16 - Around the west of Benbecula

Sunday 14th May – Around the west of Benbecula - 27.4 km

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It was a stormy, windy night. I told myself that the rain probably sounded worse than it was. The van roof stayed clipped firmly down all night. All adjustable openings, apertures and vents were officially closed but the breeze, past the dashboard-screen vents kept the air fresh. A woolly hat helped my personal comfort overnight.

The dawn was bright with a blue sky. I was up about 6 am, the sun not yet visible, but the day looked promising. Breakfasted, picnic prepared and all packed, I put my Brasher boots on - gentler for hard surface walking and now nicely dried after their deep baptism in peat bog, whereas the Meindls are far better for grip and ankle support off-track, but joltier and noticeably heavier on gravel tracks and tarmac. 

Following the track around the north of the dunes (7:50 am, 760543), and then following the beach southwards, I stopped to talk to a cyclist. I was shocked to see him pegging out his tent where the high-tide line met the drier sand, but it transpired that he was drying it in the wind after camping in the dunes. 
All round the west and south of the rocky headland, white-capped waves crashed against the shining, glinting, fixed rocks and boulders. Gulls, in a flotilla, feeding in the surf, rose as a flock from the approach of larger waves, circled and landed in the same place – repeating this cycle of activity while I approached, watched and moved on.

The ‘beach-scurryers’ were out in force on the next wet sand – dunlins or stints scurrying up the wet sand, away from each wave washing up the beach, and then turning and following the receding water, dibbing in the sand as it drained back into the sea. Since the cyclist, I had seen no-one, except the birds; but at the south end of this two-kilometre beach half a solid tyred wheel stood out of the sand to greet me, and, next to it, two-thirds submerged in sea-washed sand, lay his companion, an engine. 
At the next headland, eider floated gently, choosing calmer water behind and between protective rocks, while ringed plovers stood or sat on rocks awaiting some respite. Rounding the headland offered some difficulty – house fences had been erected up to the edge of the sand-cliff-edge, leaving no safe footing and nowhere to descend to that was out of the waves. 
There followed a seemingly endless sceptre, merging in the distance with the beaches of South Uist, across the dividing tidal silt-sands and what was once ‘the fording place’ before the causeway was built. White-topped waves; slightly rippled beige-white sand; a line of thrashed sea-weed, marking the last high water, and over the roaring and hissing, the high notes jingled through, of skylark songs, carrying across from the machair, just beyond where the steep sand slope met the grass edge.

Turning the corner of a minor headland of flattish rocks, I wandered along a narrow track of grass-topped sand, travelling south-east, the wind striking me from the side, I found it difficult to hold my course. Before me, the sea and sand lay in horizontal stripes in shades of sun-lit silver, backed by towering white-haloed, deep grey clouds, with menacing vertical streaks in shades of grey below – warning of a deluge for someone along their path. The wind sucked droplets from my nose and eyes, carrying them off, but with a side-wind instead of a head-wind, I felt much warmer. 

The next ‘beach’ was interesting, with rock layers and tufty green seaweed, looking like algae or growths of moss. Discarded farm machinery was slowly sinking and rusting away. 
 

A smooth sweep of shell fragments and sand led me left to the outlet of a stream from Oban Lionacleit. The water being too deep to wade through, I was compelled to turn north-west, passing around the back of the wind-turbine that I had passed earlier. Skylarks sweetly singing above and to my left, I crossed the squelchy, closely cropped grass, adorned with clusters of pink thrift flowers and lochan-like, sand-bottomed pools among the grass. Directly behind the wind-turbine, oyster-catchers, lapwings and gulls were circling me, screeching and crying. Attempting to turn east again, I found my way blocked by a straight artificial drainage channel, so I continued north, until I could choose between a narrow stone bridge east and through a wood-slat gate into a field, or north to the road (784498). I chose north, then west along the road past the school, and north at the first tarmac road (779500). The wind had now stopped its vigorous attempts to remove my hat, so I loosened the lace tightly linking it to my neck. The sun warmed my shoulders, the wind cooled my ears, blue sky above and to my left cheered me, while to my right, distant pillars of white, some with magnificent anvils at the top hinted a warning. On the far right, lay a north-south line of continuous white-topped, grey-bottomed cloud, formed by moisture laden air being lifted by the islands, and beyond that, by the inland hills.
The houses ceased by a field of grass with rocky outcrops and islands of iris leaves. Sheep eyed me cautiously, and by the roadside a Renault Megan stood abandoned, tyres flat, sills rusting away, extra rusty holes in the body, the rest to slowly follow into the ground. The track swung left, past a white painted house with a grey, artificial slate roof, and there stood "Buchanan’s Coach" – once luxurious transport, with the white side panels forming a bubbling surface of white, brown and orange, windows now removed and laid out along the grass, lamp installations removed and stacked up, and the interior trim in a separate pile. At the adjacent house the track stopped. The map showed the track continuing, but that was the location of a house wall and its garden. Not wishing to invade their privacy, I crossed the fence on the left, and then continued north over a field which gradually changed into a mushy bog of squidgy grass, walked carefully along a three-metre length of 10 cm square wood (i.e. 4" X 4"), cracking with decay at its ends, then north almost to the road. My passage being blocked by barbed wire fencing, I made for the place marked by dangling sheep’s wool, showing where they pass under it. Not feeling quite short enough, I held the top line down, confidently swung one leg over the top, clipped my stick with my boot, and as the stick fell, I lost balance a little, my hand slipped off the top wire, the wire sprung upwards impaling the crutch of my trousers, while my hat flew off down-wind. The barbs, so close to a delicate part of my anatomy, were out of sight, but I could feel that both trouser legs were hooked with downward facing barb points, and I hoped there was no upward facing barb. Eventually disentangling myself unpierced, I retrieved stick and hat to find that between me and the road there now lay an impassable drainage channel – a two metre width of swampy mire with floating weed. I was forced to retrace my route, re-crossing the fence with greater care, traverse east, step over another fence, balancing my feet on rickety rocks, to reach a vehicle track emanating from the private garden of the aforementioned house.

Turning right (783508), I looked for some sort of track on the left at the telephone box. I was surprised to find a sign: “Path to Griminish”, some traffic lights standing on a small trailer, and the remains of a boat hull – lichen-dappled white above a pink-orange-red patchwork, with a square portion filled in with concrete. Following the track north, after a property hosting an area of wind swept and bowed small trees, I emerged onto a flat sweep of straw-like grass - all stalks curved north – an open landscape, where skylarks and lapwings accompanied the tones of the wind, a smattering of houses lined up along the road beyond the ‘fields’, and the wedge shape of distant Eaval, on North Uist, broke the flatness. The track took me along a rusty barbed wire fence with rich red rusty posts standing as tormented figures against the contrast of the new bright green grass rising through the old dry stalks.

Reaching the next road (785517), I turned right, eastwards, looking for a track heading north (at 794517), but finding no sign of it, I continued east. I called a greeting to a man stimming his front lawn. I realised he couldn’t hear me over the wind, or the strimmer, since I couldn’t hear his strimmer over the wind. No matter! Passing the manse and the church, I turned left at the main road and sat to eat my lunch behind the war memorial on one of the two memorial benches, not quite sheltered, but certainly less strongly blown. I was facing two flat-topped hills, standing clear, but distant on the horizon – McLeod’s Tables on the Isle of Skye. To see so far (45 km) from the middle of Benbecula when at less than twenty metres above sea-level gave emphasis to the pancake flatness of this island. I would climb its highest point – Ruabhal – 124 metres high - a crumple in the pancake. As I sat, a sonorous, melodic sound sang out, its volume gradually rising and falling, sounding like an extremely long flute. Another note, about an octave and a half higher came more faintly from another direction. I looked around and followed the louder sound to one of the two metal posts supporting the “No Lorries – Cars Only” sign in the carpark. Why was only one of these posts singing?  Expecting to find an open hole at the top of the post, I found none. The one singing post had a single rusted hole on one side, part way down, being played like a flute by the wind. So, my thoughts went as follows ……. a node at each end, pipe length of 1.5 m equal to a half wavelength; wavelength = 3 m; velocity of sound, v = 330 m/s= f x w = f x 3m, so frequency = 110 Hz. OK that’s about right for how it sounds – more than an octave below middle-C. Then following the fainter sound, it took me to one of the gate posts.