Today we were heading across to Uist however the wet weather had set in so we said goodbye to Lewis and headed across to say hello to Skye via Uist in search of better weather.
We were up fairly early today and under ominous sky’s packed the bike up. As we hit the Stornaway turn off the rain started. The countryside heading from Lewis into Harris is amazing with lots of high peaks and amazing lakes high up in the mountains. The road wound down through the hills into Tarbet which is like a neck between the Isles of North and South Harris. The road from Tarbet split in two with a road on either side of the island. We took the west coast route which took us past some of the most outstanding golden sandy beaches and beautiful grassy fields. The contrast to Lewis is just amazing.
We arrived in Leverburgh with plenty of time to spare. Now The most impressive thing about Leverburgh is the name. If someone was to ride into town on a horse the it would become a one horse town. The local cafe was closed but a local entrepreneur had set up a portable diner in a minibus so we grabbed a cheese toasty and coffee to warm up with.
Whilst we waited for the ferry we met a local called Andrew who was a motorcycle enthusiast. Unfortunately he was badly injured after a car ran over him and his Hayabusa and is no longer able to ride as he has a brain injury.It brought home to us the importance of the ‘Think Bike’ campaigns when we heard the impact on his life. We chatted bikes for a long while and it was really nice to meet him and we wished him well.
The ferry from Leverburgh to Berneray was just a little calm waters ferry. We were amazed how many small islands there were between Harris and Uist. All the little islands also calmed the weather.
The rain continued when we reached Uist and it was just miserable, not a great day for riding at all. We headed for North Uist and parked up at the museum where we warmed up on soup and made the decision that we’d leave Uist until summer.
We caught the next ferry back to Uig on the Isle of Skye and headed to our B&B, stopping at Dunvegan for a meal. Talk about slow going. We were told we were in a queue and it would be twenty minutes before they old take our order. About an hour later we ate dinner and it was pretty good. We met up with some Kiwis who were travelling and chatted to them for ages. What a mistake lol! As we were heading for the B&B the heavens opened up and we were saturated. Why did we dilly dally with those blasted Kiwis? To top it off we couldn’t find the B&B in the dark so we rode around and around eventually finding it.
Arriving at the B&B we were ushered into our room and soon all our wet gear was all hanging off heated towel rails and wall heaters. It was so nice to warm up again.
Tomorrow, hopefully the weather will be better and we can explore a bit of Skye.
Tonight we stayed at Six Willows B&B at Glendale you can find their website here