The Eagle has landed – at last…

We left Balranald campsite at about 11am and set off for the ferry port on the island of Berneray.

Suddenly Peter brought Bessie to a halt beside the road and pointed to a large bird being mobbed by a gull in front of the hills.

Anyone who has been following this blog will know that we have been hoping desperately to see a Golden Eagle, after having been successful in seeing a White-Tailed Eagle for the first time on the Isle of Mull a few weeks ago.  As amateur birdwatchers, we have had several false alarms on initial sightings, turning out to be, on further investigation, a female Hen Harrier and several Buzzards!  So, it was with a certain amount of scepticism that we got the big lens out and clicked away.

The large bird eventually flew onto a fence post and sat there quite contentedly while the gull dive bombed him from above.  This went on for some time…

… until, seemingly, he got fed up and flew majestically off!

Feeling happy, we travelled onwards through the beautiful Uist countryside and coast.

And, although we had spent some time with the Golden Eagle, we still managed to cross the causeway on time and saw the ‘Loch Portain’ waiting for us.

We were soon on board and watched on the afterdeck as Berneray slipped away into the distance.

The voyage takes only an hour and before we knew it we were docking at Leverburgh in Harris.

A small group of Tufted Ducks flew a short distance as we passed.

Despite the dull skies, Harris still looks as magnificent as ever, with its golden beaches, turquoise seas and crashing waves.

We stopped at Hebrides Art – an art gallery combined with café that we had visited last time.  Our sort of place – not cheap but beautifully presented food and the kind of art we like – mostly concentrating on Harris.

 

We spotted a lone Whimbrel in the shallows.

Harris turned into Lewis (they are, in fact, one island) and the scenery grew more rugged and barren.

After a journey of another couple of hours we reached our campsite for the night – Uig Sands.  It is on the west coast of Lewis and is run by the local Grazing Committee.  Excellent toilet and shower facilities and all for £2 a person per night!  What it doesn’t have, of course, is electricity and so we were unable to use the laptop for the photographs once the battery got dangerously low.  We chatted with another two couples and it turned out that they had both wild camped at Eoligarry Jetty on Barra. I had laughed at the time about a sticker on one of their motorhomes – ‘Adventure before Dementia’!  Grey Nomads are certainly alive and well in the Hebrides.

We took a short walk just to see the beach which was invisible to us, being behind the dunes.  It turned out to be an amazing huge expanse of sand and would have looked wonderful in better weather.

A wonderful place to camp but we did miss the electricity!