Wednesday 2 July 2014

Western Isles 2014 Day 3: More of the same, with an unexpected bonus


The Tender behind the Boy James
Next day was Monday. The weather was still lovely, and we woke from our 'log cabin' at the Dunard Hostel at a suitably early hour. (Note, the structure advertised as a 'log cabin' at the Dunard Hostel, is identical to that marketed as a 'camping pod' at the Ayers Rock campsite on Sanday in Orkney, where a night's stay is considerably cheaper.) We didn't have any specific issues with the hostel per se, as the kitchen and showers were fabulously well appointed, and the lounge spacious and warm, but over the two nights we stayed we found the atmosphere to be somewhat stilted, without any of the Bonhomie we'd found at the Gatliffe hostels of our previous trip up this coast. That they didn't disappoint in this regard second time around suggests this wasn't a case of rose tinted spectacles, perhaps it was because the Dunard seemed to be predominantly filled with a Christian rambling society, and perhaps our ideas of an evenings entertainment don't coincide that well. 

Mingulay from Berneray (Gearam Mhor to left)
Anyway, enough moaning about quiet and respectful hostel guests, and on with the islands. Today was to be a repeat of the last in many respects, with a meeting at the slipway at ten to embark once again on the Boy James for a short trip to the south. We did feel a bit special when we turned up at the boat and Donald greeted us by name as he was corralling the rest of the passengers for today, these ones seemed to be mainly birdwatchers, destined for the island of Mingulay, which was where we headed first. After Donald had helped the twenty or so other passengers off the boat onto the flat bottomed little tender for his assistants Francis and Dewey to take land them at the bottom of the cliffs on Mingulay however, he instructed me and Liam to stay on board, as first of all he was going to run us the additional mile or so to land on Berneray, or Barra Head, the furthest south of all of the Western Isles.

On Berneray
Barra Head Lighthouse
There's not a huge amount of interesting stuff to say about Berneray itself, 2 miles long by one mile wide, rising to a Marilyn and with an imposing Stephenson lighthouse on it's head. Its history has followed the usual trend of these isles, with a recorded pastoral population of subsistence farmers eking a living out of it's thin soil for centuries until they left it in the hands of the lighthouse keepers in 1931, and when they left in 1980 as the light went automatic, the rock was left to the birds and the sheep. 

Approaching Gearam Mhor
We didn't stop for long on Berneray as there wasn't much to do and Donald was waiting, he had suggested that there might be another island we could bag before setting down on Mingulay for an hour or two. At the Western end of the channel between Mingulay and Berneray, facing the full expanse of the Atlantic, lies little Gearum Mhor. Donald and Francis said they'd climbed to the top before, and showed us photos of them on top as proof, apparently there are some remains of human occupation on top, which is confirmed by the website maintained by the Western Isles Archaeology Service, which also has something to say about accessing the island


'The rock ... is inaccessible except from the side next Mingulay, where the face is terraced. These terraces may be partly artificial, as they lead by short traverses to the top, which is flat and covered with grass. A low stone breastwork occupies the face of the rock above the terraces, and the latter have been protected on the sea side with similar breastworks'. 
'As seen from the boat, the remains of those walls were from two to three feet in height, and built of dry stonework; the rock is at least 60 feet high, and as a place of defence it must have been impregnable.' J Wedderspoon 1915. 

On the Terrace
Artificial or not, these so called 'terraces' looked very much like slippery weed covered juts of rock, and even ascending just one terrace would have left us some twenty feet above roaring sea with no handhold to save us if we slipped. We had already taken our lives into our hands once just making the jump onto the rocks from the tender of the James, and were more than content with a photo on the lower levels of the rock without making the ascent to the top.  

Not a happy camper - in fact, pretty scared
Now it really was time to go to Mingulay, and this was one of the islands that I was looking forward to visiting the most. Despite having its own twentieth century evacuation story similar to Sandray, Pabbay and Berneray already visited, this one seemed to have stuck in collective consciousness a bit more, with more information available about Mingulay and its people than other places. You can find a jumping off point to read about the sea-birds, enormous sea-cliffs and the Mingulay boat song from our good friends at www.google.co.uk.

Mingulay
Mingulay Bay
 When we arrived we climbed over the clifftops into what would have been the village, just as it started to rain. We made our way up the side of the opposite hill to the structure of the old school yard with the modern warden's accommodation behind, where we met the warden himself and had a chat about the weather and the island. Turned out he knew who we were and what we were doing, so we had a chat about islands in general as the rain started to come down more heavily. It didn't last however, and after wandering around the village for a while taking photos of the buildings and landscape we ended up gravitating towards the beach where a seal was toying with us swimming just off shore, and the rain was rousing up the dried up stream, trying to make it reach the sea. 

Sand House
Abandoned building, used to be a schoolhouse
Then the rain came
Our time on Mingulay was dictated by the crowd who had come for their day trip, and the next stage was back on the Boy James, around the back of Mingulay to get up close and personal with the giant looming sea cliffs, and the bird colonies that live there. Apparently it was one of the best days of the year for this journey, as Donald bravely managed to steer the James through a natural arch with swell rising and falling and not a huge amount of clearance either to the sides or below, the views were absolutely awesome. So was Donald's suggestion on the way back to  Castlebay. If we wanted, he would meet us at his house in Northbay later on, where he had another smaller boat, and would take us on a private tour around some of the small islands fringing the north west coast of Barra. Yes we did want to. No questions asked!

Then stopped again
Weather in action
Sea Cave 
First we had to get involved in the end of the normal service of the day. Whilst Donald was dropping off the rest of the passengers in Castlebay he dropped me and Liam off on another Orasaigh that we had been eyeing up since our arrival, just at the end of the peninsula north of Castlebay. Once the commoners had been dispatched with us boat folk headed over in the Boy James to Caolas, the settlement just over the causeway onto Vatersay, where the craft is kept overnight. It just so happens there's also another Orasaigh there, and this time it was turn for young Dewey to take the motor of the tender and power us over for a quick landing an a photo. 

Orasaigh 1
Orasaigh 2
Donald gave us a lift back to the car at the Dunard, and then we followed him, (as fast as we dared, he knew the roads better than us!) up the east coast to Northbay. In no time at all we were out on the water again and we began a circuit of the many small but big enough islands that sit between Barra and Eriskay. Starting a little down the West coast of Barra at little Healum, we visited about sixteen islands in two hours in total, the largest and furthest away being Fuday, we also stopped at Hellisay, now uninhabited and seemingly uninhabitable, but apparently where Donald's grandfather was born when it was still inhabited, and also little Grianamul, where the ferry pulls across to head into Barra's northern terminal from Eriskay, and where Donald had landed before to pick cockles. There's not much to say about Garbh-Lingeigh, Eilean na Clarsiach, Eilean Sheumais or any of the other mouthfuls, beyond them being pleasant places to stop for a few minutes to take some photos, looking out across the bay as the sun drops low in the sky, with trusty skipper waiting below to lead you across the chain like stepping stones in the great Hebridean mess of a sea. Beautiful.

 




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