
Having had a lovely night’s sleep at Shellbay Campsite on South Uist I awoke to another day of glorious sunshine, blue skies and the fell in the air that it was going to be a scorcher of a day.
Once I had packed up and had a chat and a cup of tea provided by a lovely couple in a motor home (whom I think felt a bit sorry for me as I had been staying in a tiny tent and living out of a car), I waved good bye to Alan, the friendly campsite owner and headed to Lochmaddy. Here I popped into the lovely arts and crafts shop and grabbed a coffee which I drank whilst overlooking the harbour.

With the sun shining I went up Borgh (85m) to sit in the sun for a while before continuing on in the car to the north east of Berneray where I ascended Bein Ghainche which led to the north coast where I sat and watched the Gannets and Manx Shearwaters dive bomb into the sea, with views to Harris behind them. Further up I gained more height on Beinn Shieibhe where I was welcomed by a panoramic view of the Outer Hebridean Islands and could even see the ghostly silhouette of St Kilda, the now nature reserve where once people lived.

Once I was dried off and dressed got back into the car to drive over to the west coast of North Uist where I stopped by a forested nature reserve and walked around for an hour or so. Before long I spotted a buzzard soaring low above me carrying something in its talons, and so stopped to watch for a while. Suddenly a falcon came into sight and headed straight for the buzzard, and as I looked on wondering what it was planning to do, it took whatever the buzzard was carrying right from it and flew away at a hefty pace. The buzzard didn’t put up a fight but was at this point so close above me that I could almost make out the look of shock and confusion on the poor bird’s face!


