Sailing to the Uists

Tuesday 9 September 2025

Nido's parked up by Baleshare beach on the west coast of North Uist.  It's very windy and we've had some rain showers, but they're holding off for now.  It's almost high tide and the waves are crashing on to rocks about 20 metres away.  It's been quite a rainy day and tomorrow is looking worse, but we're getting out for walks when we can.

The Butty Bus was open yesterday morning when I took Salty out for his morning walk at Leverburgh harbour, so we had breakfast rolls which were very tasty.  I drove round to the ferry waiting area and we were checked in.  The ferry was soon visible as it approached and the vehicles were quickly offloaded, then we were all loaded up.  By the time we'd locked up and made our way to the passenger lounge the ferry was already on its way.  It was a sunny but blowy day, reasonably warm in the sunshine if out of the wind, so we spent the journey sat outside as the ferry wound its way through the rocks and small islands.  

An hour later we were disembarking on Berneray, an island that's joined to the Uists by a road causeway.  Our first stop was the only shop on the island to pick up some basic items, then we drove to West beach, parking up and walking across the grass and through the dunes to another very long, white sandy beach.  The sand is course and I was in shorts, so my legs were sand-blasted!  Having stretched ours (and Salty's) legs after the ferry crossing we drove across (just a few minutes) to East beach, which was our park up for the night.  Nido was parked on the grass a few metres from the sand, along with about five other vans spread over about half a kilometre, so we all had plenty of room.  We had lovely views of the beach, the sea and onwards looking north to the mountains of Harris.  Cathy cooked a lovely beef stew and we sat in the cab seats with our meal and a glass of wine, just looking out at the amazing vista.

As this morning was dry, we used the opportunity to give the van a good clean out, talking out all the mats and seat covers to give them a good shake in the wind and a brush down - little blacks dogs leave lots of little black hairs!  With showers, clean bedding and a swept out van, we were ready for the day.  On the way we stopped at the Coral Box Gift Shop in Berneray.  It's a tiny wooden shack that sells all sorts of local Hebridean, nautical and island themed gifts and crafts;  the owner is on social media and a couple of messages before we came suggested places to swim, so I wanted to thank her too.  Unfortunately the weather's prevented us swimming but who knows....   Cathy bought a lovely cushion with the cover made of harris tweed (in a bright orange colour) with images of oyster catchers - a lovely momento of our time here.

I drove a short distance to the township and ferry port of Lochmaddy, to empty the toilet cassette and with the plan to take a walk around.  But for some reason it was busy and there was no parking available.  So we carried on and drove to Langass Woodland.  This is a community-managed woodland and they first started planting in the 1960, predominantly spruce and pine.  However, storms opened up gaps and these allowed some planting of deciduous trees, bringing in all sorts of flora and birdlife.

We also visited the final resting place of Hercules the bear, who is buried in a lovely clearing amongst the trees, with a life-size wooden statue and a bench to sit and think.  Hercules had already starred in Disney movies and the James Bond film Octopussy, when he was brought to North Uist to fill a toilet paper advert.  'Resting' between scenes, his owner took him for a swim along the coast when his rope snapped and he escaped.  He evaded capture for 23 days before eventually being spotted, shot with a tranquilliser gun and airlifted back to Lochmaddy.  He'd lost 127kg in weight as he didn't know how to forage for food, yet because he was habituated to humans, he didn't attack anyone.

Moving on the plan was to visit a RSPB site on the coast and we stopped off at the Hebridean Smokehouse on the route to buy smoked fish and pate.  On reaching the RSPB parking though, heavy rain arrived and it looked set to stay for the rest of the afternoon, so we reversed our route and came to our current park-up at Baleshare beach.  Several vans were parked up with guys packing up after kite surfing, but once they left we moved on to the grass area, with a big stony bank between us and the beach.  We're the only ones here now.  There's an honesty box asking for a £10 donation, with the money going towards maintaining the community defibrillator.  I always put donations in an envelope so I can write a note of thanks to the local community for allowing us to park up in such lovely, peaceful places.  Supper tonight was haggis, with steamed vegetables and tatties, plus a cheese and pepper sauce.  On the way here we stopped at cake honesty box on the side of the road and bought some homemade shortbread, which went down very well tonight with a cup of tea.

Tomorrow the weather's looking very dreachy, so we'll decide where to go based on that.  I'm watching the weather forecast for the next few days closely as there's a risk that at least one of our final two ferries may be cancelled do to the wind and rough seas.  If they are we can book the next available slot free of charge.  Luckily we don't have to be home for another fortnight, so we're not too concerned if we have to spend another couple of days in South Uist or Barra.