This was an epic long bicycle tour that I went on, over the course of ten days, with friend Mark in the July of 2007 to the Outer Hebrides, also known as the Western Isles. We took our bikes up on the train to Scotland, eventually arriving at Oban where I'll never forget a seagull that swooped down and grabbed a sandwich straight out of my hand as I was having lunch!
After wild camping at Oban we then caught the ferry the following day to the southernmost island of the Outer Hebrides archipelago, Barra. The sea journey out to Barra is a lengthy 85 mile route, taking five hours.
After wild camping on the Barra coast for the night, we cycled around the island the next day to explore it well before taking another ferry on to the next island in the chain, South Uist.
After cycling up to the tip of South Uist we crossed the causeway to the Isle of Benbecula. Causeways are a common feature of the Outer Hebrides; man-made, solid, flat 'bridges' of stone and rock with a road on top that join one section of broken up land to another.
From Benbecula we crossed another causeway to North Uist. We took the west route because of the more interesting coastal scenery including the distant triangular shape of the remote island St Kilda 40 miles out to sea. It was also nice to see Golden Eagles now and again. We eventually arrived at a ferry port where we took another ferry across to the Isle of Harris, a much hillier place with proper mountains.
We had decided on our way to Harris that we would climb the highest mountain on the Outer Hebrides, which is called 'An Cliseam' (799m). So we hid our bikes out of sight from the main road and hiked up to the summit of this lonely mountain. As usual, there were no other people around, which added to the peaceful atmosphere of the place. At the top we found ourselves level with the clouds, looking down at a most spectacular panorama of these islands.
We then cycled on to the northern Isle of Lewis which borders Harris in the south. Lewis is comparatively flat, and we headed all the way to the northern most tip of Lewis where there was a lighthouse. We relaxed there for a while and looked east over the sea across to mainland Scotland where we could see mountains fifty miles away, which was a memorable sight.
We then had to cycle back the way we had come to Stornoway, the largest town on the Western Isles which we had cycled through on the way up Lewis. After spending some time there, we continued another 37 miles on down to Tarbert where we could catch a ferry to Skye.
Cycling the 58 miles across Skye was quite interesting. An alternative route would have been to have simply caught the ferry from Stornoway to Ullapool on the mainland, with a 33 mile ride from Ullapool to the nearest railway station. This would have bypassed the need to cycle down from Stornoway to Tarbert which we didn't really want to have to do again, but we decided that we wanted to cycle across Skye.
After crossing Skye, we took the ferry across to the port of Mallaig where we could put our bikes on the train and head back home. We had cycled a total of 320 miles.
Looking westwards out to the Atlantic from South Uist
The white sandy beaches of North Uist
Sgarasta Bay on South Harris
View from summit of 'An Cliseam', facing east.
Fine weather for our approach to the Butt of Lewis, the northernmost point.
Port Stoth, near the Butt of Lewis, north tip of Isle of Lewis
Port Stoth, near the Butt of Lewis, north tip of Isle of Lewis
Port of Ness beach, north tip of Isle of Lewis
Stornoway
Uig Bay, Skye
Cycling through central Skye.
Southern Skye, looking across the Sound of Sleat to the mainland.
The Isle of Rum, 16 miles across the sea from Mallaig.
The Isle of Eigg, 12 miles across the sea from Mallaig.
The 10 day route: starting at Oban and ending at Mallaig
