A wet day! Breakfast was good, checked out around 10 and found our beautiful ebikes waiting for us in an unlocked shed beside the community shop (when asked about locks Tony gave us one but said we’d never need it! )
It was grey, overcast with really low cloud when we set off at 10.15am. We decided to head south to Vatersay to really begin the journey where it was supposed to. The e bikes made it very easy although we were conscious we didn’t want to run out of battery. (We needn’t have worried - using the bikes as normal bikes for most of the time we only used 1/5 of our battery power). We have 5 settings - off, eco, tour, sport and turbo. Eco and tour were more than adequate for our days cycling despite the hills.
The start of our journey - from the Castlebay Hotel - and the Castle of Castlebay itself
Turning south we only took about half an hour to get to Vatersay to start the whole adventure. Low grey skies, drizzle, but nothing too awful. Vatersay is connected to Barra by a short causeway constructed in 1991
Then a very modern looking war memorial with dozens of men lost from many communities over the course of 2 World Wars.
And finally the wreck of a plane in 1944 with wreckage still strewn around - 3 died, 6 survived
Once back to Castlebay we turned north and simply headed to the Barra Ferry terminal with loads of time to spare, but thinking possibly we might get an earlier ferry. No such ferry existed but there was an extremely busy little cafe and waiting room available when we arrived at 12.30. Given that the weather was closing in we were very happy to sit in the dry, buy a coffee, eat our sandwiches and generally enjoy the cafe buzz. Ferry users and locals alike seemed to visit!
In addition we were looking out for Tony the person we had rented our bikes from. He was heading back from Eriskay with 4 bikers who were heading to the Barra ferry. He stopped for a coffee and to instruct us on how to get the battery out of our bikes, plus answer any questions we had. He was impressed at how light we were travelling!
Thereafter we were very happy to shelter from the rain and finally get our bikes on the ferry to Eriskay, departing at 3.45, a 40 minute crossing
We expected to land in Eriskay in the rain but it was dry so we headed off optimistically to cycle the full route to our accommodation rather than go straight there. The causeway connecting it to South Uist was also built in 2001
The weather was off the and on heavy rain but we did do the full route stopping a couple of times for photos…
Nice beach, of which there are MANY
And a Catholic shrine. The south of the Outer Hebrides is mainly Catholic
We finally arrived at Invercanny B and B at about 5.30. Audrey greeted us with the offer of a dram and a glass of wine - gratefully accepted, and the offer of a run to the Borrodale Hotel for our dinner booking, also gratefully accepted.
We hung up and dried all our wet gear as best we could and got our lift to the hotel. We insisted she did not pick us up as she would have liked to do! So a nice couple of drinks in the bar and some good food, followed by a brisk and dry walk home. The forecast looks dry for tomorrow 🤞🤞🤞
