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Rising at 5:30 am to light rain, I made my porridge with raisins, cup of tea and prepared myself and my kit. I didn’t really need the rain to stop until 11:00 am but its easier to be optimistic if it brightens sooner than required. By 7:35 am I was at the bus shelter waiting for the 8:05 bus. Light rain was spitting outside and drips were dropping down the edges of the shelter. Three cars passed in the space of half an hour, all going at quite some speed. Some geese passed. A couple of siskins flitted lightly in bounding slow flight. As I waited, I gained a sense of trepidation. Would this stage be one on which I would come unstuck? The roads and tracks should be OK. The main road might prove tiresome or even boring? However, the part in the middle – was an unknown. Would I need to detour onto higher ground because of bog? Would footbridges be there? Would I be able to get across streams? Would there be a suitable place to camp? In the middle section there is no short cut to get out – its either onwards or turn back! At 8:09 am I was on the bus – I was committed to my plan.
There were three other passengers. A man with a pale green baseball cap was talking to the lady driver, who drove with reading glasses perched on top of her head. First, they were talking in Gaelic, then in English, then sentences which were mixed, then back to almost continuous English, but phrases in Gaelic inserted themselves now and again – probably when local idioms were wanted. I’d forgotten the bleakness of mid-Lewis, but it struck me – the flattish brown and yellow-green peat moor, featuring the occasional dip with a lochan or a small rocky mound. It was only when nearing Stornaway that there was a break to the monotony – some gorse in flower, a lodge with some old trees in a slight valley with a stream – and then the joyless, commercial edge of town.
Arriving at the bus station (8:35 am), Tesco supermarket was handily in sight, with an enormous choice, but I only wanted what I would eat in two days – 1 Makesson smoked sausage (I forgotten that I already had one packed), 2 bananas, 1 seeded bread-roll, 1 pack of 4 cookies. With nothing to inspire me to walk about Stornaway, I returned to the bus station to sit and wait. Soon after, the male passenger from the bus returned with a deep supermarket trolley, filled with four large bags stuffed to capacity – a free return trip for weekly shopping courtesy of an over-sixties bus pass. The bus from Tarbert arrived empty, as did the one from the ‘Lochs’ region, rain continued gently, a few people walked by slowly – looking dazed. A man in a yellow jacket wandered into the bus station – he looked like the man on the check-out – collected the Tesco trolleys left around the bus station and returned them to the store. The soft, slow, trace-like nature of each person's every movement combined with the hazy light to produce a dreamy effect which seemed both surreal and soporific. A white van from the fisherman’s cooperative parked in a bus lane. A man in white overalls and elasticated over-boots carried a large tray (40 cm x 80 cm? wrapped in bin-bags and taped up tightly) to the passenger waiting room door. Finding it locked, he carried it to the staff entry door, then put it into the Tarbert bus luggage hold, returned to his van and drove off. At 9:25 am the driver returned to the Tarbert bus. I was one of four passengers who converged on it, followed less enthusiastically by three more. He started the engine, put on some Gaelic music and waited. 9:34 am the door shut and we set off.
Approaching Baile Ailein, the sea-loch was backed by yellow-brown hills, in turn backed by black and dismal grey higher hills dotted with cloud. We waited for sheep to be herded across the road by a shepherd clad in a black waterproof above bright orange-red over-trousers. The music changed to American Country style as we met Loch Seaforth, fjord-like on our left, while on our right formidable cliffs rose into the cloud. The rain continued but there were brighter patches in the gloom to the south. Climbing over the pass, between the North Harris hills, we passed a line of yellow-green clad cyclists winding away at their low gears – pedalling briskly but travelling slowly. We were descending slowly, due to the steep gradient, the sea was in view, the aspect brighter, headlands on both sides, deep grey clouds separating and lying beneath a higher uniform light grey ceiling. The final Loch a Siar, loch-side section seemed so long – I would walk back along this later to reach the minor road to Loch Mhiabhaig – I would need to settle into my rhythm and be absorbed into the calm of it.
10:35 am – Arrived at Tarbert bus station; topped-up one water bottle (would fill the other later); had no 50p coin for the shower, so a full scalp to toes wash sufficed; walked west out of town (11:00 am) and reached the junction for the B887 to Huisinis at 12:15 pm. The main road was easy and uneventful, but I needed to be mindful of traffic, the minor road more peaceful. At 12:50 pm I found a wet bench on a view point where I could observe the rain, and then I continued. Another viewpoint loomed at 1:50 pm with tables and benches and the rain had almost stopped. I could have eaten lunch there but I had eaten it a little earlier perched on a roadside hump when I was deceived into thinking the rain was letting up.
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| The view west along Loch a Siar, from Aird an Tolmachain, by Loch Mhiabhaig. |
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| Near the head of Loch Miabhaig, Gleann Mhiabhaig and Sron Scourst ahead. |
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