After the strong gusty wind, with rain squalls all night, I went over to the wash-block at 6:30 am – just to take advantage of a gap in the rain. It then rained till 11:00 am. I tidied up, put away, packed up my tent and trek-gear, which was now dry. The van roof proved more difficult. I struggled trying to put it down in the rain, blamed the cold material for being less flexible to fold, couldn’t get the clamps to close, put it back up again and discovered the mattress had moved out of place in the roof stopping it from closing. With the mattress re-positioned it was so easy! My first priority was to go to Barabhas for food and fuel, then Carlabhagh and the Black-house village at Gearrannan. The car-park was almost full and the village well attended by tourists. Not being attracted by the prospect of tourists for company or wishing to read information boards and look at over-smartened homes - old buildings restored beyond their era, precision cut thatches with modern skylights in the rooves – it all struck me as a romantic, artificially nice re-construction that would not show why the islanders were so keen to move out of the old houses. I walked on to the cliff-top trail and the headland.
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| The view SW from Cnoc An Leithaid near Gearrannan |
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| The view SW from Cnoc An Leithaid near Gearrannan |
I patrolled the headland too, feeling the strength of the wind, admiring and photographing the view towards Bearnaraigh (Great Bernera), with dotted islands, breaking waves, and areas of sunlight moving across the hills behind. I watched and waited, battered and shaken, adjusted my position and waited again, hoping for a sunspot to illuminate a suitable feature in the scene, but it never happened.
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| Thrift on the headland, Cnoc An Leithaid, near Gearrannan |
By the time I returned to the carpark, it was over full, and a number of penetrating loud voices with American accents disturbed me. I drove off in search of a quiet spot for lunch – eventually finding a peaceful spot on the moorland minor road from Carlabhagh to Stornaway, just as the rain returned. I’d wondered if this road would make a good alternative to the main coastal road for part of my walk. I discovered it to be quite bleak and not worth missing out the coast for it, despite some of the coastal route requiring a main-road-walk.
While eating lunch, I boiled half a dozen eggs ready for later. The rain eased up briefly, then returned even heavier until 6:00 pm. Returning to the campsite, I found the field rather soggy, but the clouds clearing. It did seem like this was a day to recover and refuel and prepare for the next long walk, so I took five rashers of bacon, grilled them on top of two slices of bread; put two rashers into a sandwich for the next day; sandwiched three rashers between the bread from the grill-pan and toasted both sides – no loss of bacon juices and no nasty, greasy fat to wash up: concluding by eating toasted bacon sarnies with a tin of beans and two boiled eggs.
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| An evening walk from the Siabost campsite |
The snipe “whorra-whorra” display flight was coming from somewhere near, but I couldn’t see it. I set out for an evening walk around 8:15 pm with the snipe, and then a corncrake-skylark serenade. From the campsite (257465), turning left onto the main road for 250 m, then right(254464), following the lane, then right(246470), right again (246474) to the carpark at the end of the tarmac(253476). Crossing the embankment where the embankment divides sea-shore from the fresh-water loch, there was a corncrake in the reeds. A cuckoo joined in. Turning right (260477), the lane led me back to Siabost. A fine spray of rain swept gently across, but some very dark grey clouds moved across on either side of me – someone else was getting a real dowsing! The snipe continued its display, but still I couldn’t see it. Getting back into camp at 10:00 pm it hardly seemed late at all.
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