Outer Hebrides

---

By the time the ferry arrives in Tarbet it is colder and there is a distinct difference in the landscape. It feels like there are more rocks and less soil on these Islands. They are more rugged. Skye seemed to be a very picturesque island. The Outer Hebrides are more remote, Harris the more mountainous Island. I head out of Tarbet and am soon off the road and onto a good path to Lochannan Lacasdail. Half way along the loch, (5 km from Tarbet) is a place to camp and I should have stopped there. I felt there might be better ahead. I was wrong. 

I had to go on another three kilometres to just before the road to Màriag where I could angle the tent next to a park bench for a flat pitch. Those last few kilometres and the 100 meters of elevation really tired me out. A few long days and I’m thinking about having another half day to recover. 

t’s a bit dreich this morning. But everything in the tent is dry and nothing is broken after three weeks, so I am content. A normal morning through boggy trails and in the rain, then down the road until I get to a forest. I keep an eye out for camping places and find a strange flat grass covered platform next to a burn which seems just right for me to put my tent on. So it is time to pitch up and take a siesta. I have taken and not taken paracetamol and Ibuprofen when I felt it necessary, but I have  only really needed it a couple of times when the aching in my legs was loosing me sleep. Other than this my body has adapted well enough to the extreme change in demands on it. If I lie on my back and stretch my legs I recover well. 

Campsite days and times when I have spent my rest time in gentle activity outside the tent have not been so good for physical recovery but were welcome for my mental health. It is a product of this time of year, peak midge season, that I spend days in joyful walking or flat on my back in a my tent and not much in between. As soon as I stop walking the midge swarms are so annoying that to spend any time out of the inner tent is impossible. I am happy to be on my walk but if I could change one thing I would not be journeying at this time of year. Life delayed my plans to leave at the end of April and instead I left in mid July, In late spring and early summer the midges are far far less and the chance of winds to blow them away far more. Colder temperature would make the rain harder to bare but that is a matter of clothing. 

So it is very important to keep my mind active during the long hours I spend resting in the tent. Good for leg recovery, bad for mental health. I do a puzzle a day from my puzzle book. Review footage shot on my Gopro during the day and talk to it about the route and camping techniques. The rest of the time I listen to lots of audiobooks. I am lucky to not mind repeat listens. What I am lacking is local knowledge and I will try to find some audiobooks on; Scottish history, fauna and flora, animal and plant life cycles, geology, ecology, the politics of land use, astronomy, all subjects that I wish I had just that little bit more knowledge of. When spending all of my time in nature I would like to know the stories of the land, why certain plants grow here and not there. But mostly I want to know what midges do when I am not around to nibble on. Do they feed on other animals, are they just the same million that keep following me around or really exist in such numbers across Scotland that, I swear, there are more midges on earth than grains of sand or stars in the sky. I have a Milky-way amount here with me between the inner and outer of my tent this evening. 

The day starts grey and never really cheers up, with occasional showers and little wind. I start on a board walk, I think that is what it is called that runs parallel to the main road and takes me over some boggy ground. Unlike Skye there has been some effort put into the paths that make up the Hebridean way but due to the nature of the land the route does include a fair amount of road walking. This is also a fault of my route as it uses perhaps the least interesting part of this trail to get from Tarbet on Harris to Stornaway on Lewis. Again this is dictated by geography. But, and this is important as it is integral to the enjoyment of long trail, you pass through different landscapes. The satisfaction from seeing these remote and rugged Islands by foot is immense and makes up for the less dramatic trail. 

After Mull, Ardnamuchan, Knoydart and Skye something a little less exciting is inevitable. There is a community Cafe in the village of Baile Ailein where I ate lunch, some thick soup and a roll. At Lacasaigh you turn off the road and pass Loch Ulapuil on your left. Then it is wonderful moorland for a couple of hours with 360 views, Lewis has big skies. At Achamore you are on roads again, bummer. I look for flat camp sites but find little. Around the edge of Loch na Ramh are a few spots. I choose one and hole up for the night.