Outer Hebrides - Days 4 & 5 - Benbecula

On Tuesday, I took the mid-morning bus from Lochboisdale up to Lionacleit on Benbecula. While I was waiting for the bus, I stopped in a knitting shop called ‘Wool of Many Colours’ that’s right across from the bus stop and ended up talking with the shop lady about Brexit and American politics and how screwed up both of our countries (and others) are right now. The local bus dropped me off at Lionacleit Secondary School and i walked over to the Dark Island Hotel to get some lunch and kill a little time before walking up to check in to the Hebrides House Accommodation where I stayed. Dark Island Hotel is lovely and right next to the sea, I think if I were going to come back this way, I’d probably stay there. After lunch, I walked over to Hebrides House to meet my host, Marion and her daughter. Marion is a talker and LOVES meeting people so she’s in the right job and we ended up talking for about an hour while she finished getting my room ready and filling me in on the local info. She offered to give me a morning ride yesterday over to the only hill on Benbecula, Ruaidheabhal (slowly but surely I’m getting the hang of Gaelic pronunciation and have started trying to use it a bit when meeting people: ‘good morning’ ‘how are you?’ ‘thank you’ etc). So yesterday morning, I came down and met Marion who drove me to the base of the hill and then I walked up and down it. It was pretty cloudy so the views from the top weren’t the best but it was a fun climb. After I came down the hill, I walked the ring road around the island over to the main village of Balivanich where I walked on the beach in Culla Bay for a bit and then had a delicious lunch (tomato and basil soup, open-faced smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwich, tea) at a cafe called Stepping Stone. I walked my way back to Hebrides House by continuing around the ring road through Nunton and managed to get back before the worst of the rain started. Last night was very rainy and windy so I stayed in and watched TV online. This morning, the sun was out so it was a really nice walk to the Lionacleit bus stop to head north to Lochmaddy on North Uist. I was a little early for the bus and noticed that the Lionacliet Library was advertising an exhibition in their museum. The secondary school, library and museum are all in one building — small little spot, Lionacleit. :) So I checked out what ended up being a really beautiful photography exhibition by a guy named Paul Glazier — portraits and landscape shots of Vatersay (one of the southern islands in the chain, where I walked to the beach a few days ago). I took the bus up through the tidal sands around Grimsay and into the rolling hills of North Uist and here I am in Lochmaddy settling in.

Ballie Cailleach Chapel remains and medieval graveyard, Nunton