Who needs a map? Walking around Berneray.
Sunday 14 October 2018
Berneray is the small island at the top of the southern group of islands in the Hebrides. The ferry wends its way among the small islands and banks south of Leverburgh to Berneray terminal and then you take the causeway to North Uist and the Newtonferry area. For our walk today, we went back past the terminal from Linicleate in Benbecula, and on to Berneray with its tiny community but perfect beaches.
You tend to think of the Highlands as high moors, steep mountains and granite outcrops, but only Harris in all the Wester Isles really confirms. Lewis and Uist are low-lying and dominated by the unique sea-pasture of the “machair”. Fortified by the fact that Paula confused miles and kilometres and had us ready for a 7.5 kilometre stroll, we headed out from the community centre, found the first guide pole, and immediately got lost. It may be that we were distracted by the flock of geese we disturbed, but we ended up doing the walk backwards. We had no proper map, not much signal, and ended up trying to navigate by reading the instructions backwards while standing on our heads.
We were very lucky with the weather as we picked our way across the flooded machair – sea pasture – to the dunes and down on the beach, we got away with a few showers but loved the walk along the beach for about five kilometres, until we walked over the headland into sheep country. The markers were almost totally absent, so we probably did an extra couple of kms here, but we were off the beach and in sight of crofts after about two hours.
We had a snack lunch – with me enjoying tea from my new thermos – near the Youth Hostel, which was a much modified blackhouse. Indeed, a number of holiday cottages were very occupied blackhouses, very different from Lewis. A number of ruined ones lay on the headland above Baile, the main village.
The village was that odd Highlands combination of old council houses, done-up B and Bs and the odd new construction or radical rebuild. The brand new harbour must help the local fishing trawler (tiny boats for the Sound), but it doesn’t worry the seals, who behaved like obese sun-bathers on the rocks around the shore.
We finished with 13 kms of walking to celebrate, but the island has no pub and everybody seemed to be either at a prayer meeting or coming back from Church (more Presbyterians around here than at the World Calvinist Conventions). Solution! Drive 45 minutes to Eriskay, at the far southern end of the road, where there’s a pub and a Catholic Church. Where there’s micks, there’s beer…
Eriskay is famous for four things, as far as I can find out – Bonnie Prince Charlie, Flora McDonald, the wreck of the MV Politician and the Church. Actually, Flora met Charlie on Benbecula, but the Skye Boat Song is accurate because they ended up at Portree. The beach on Eriskay where he was landed by the French is reputed to have flowers not native to the Isles, apparently seeded when he pulled his handkerchief out the blow his nose – pollination by hay fever?
The pub is the Politician because of the shipwreck in 1941. The Politician was carrying – amongst other things – several hundred thousand pounds in cash and thirty five thousand cases of whisky. Tragically, some of the cash and much of the whisky was missing when the revenue men arrived, and to stop further depredations, the wreck was blown up. However, hidden stores keep being turned up when houses are renovated or gardens remodelled, and there is a prize bottle in the pub. You can read the story in Compton Mackenzie’s Whisky Galore (which I have added to my list!).
St Michael’s must be one of the most exposed Catholic Church’s in the world – lord only knows what it must be like to be up on the headland in a storm, but there are handrails on the walls of the church to stop people being blown away (probably Calvinists). The church claims to have the bell of the SMS Derflinger, but as the main bell is in the custody of the BundesMarin, I think it isn’t the main one.
If you hear the bell ringing, you are either:
A. Late for Mass
B. About to row someone to Skye
C. Joining the Home Guard because the German’s have invaded
D. In the shit, because it’s a hurricane and the bell has blown off its hinges!
Of course, Eriskay looked stunning in the late afternoon sunshine, especially through a glass of Harris gin. We had to get back for what proved to be a stunning meal at the Orasay Inn – I don’t think we have tasted such nice seafood as on the west coast and islands, and dinner was the best of the best. A truly epic day, and we slept the sleep of the just.
