An Afternoon of Beaches

In my last post I outlined the way we spent Tuesday morning. When I started the post I'd intended to cover the whole day, but realised that it had already become long by the time I had got to lunch. It was another busy day.

So after lunch we continued with the second part of our journey which is depicted on the same map as the last post.

The Route South

Leaving the Doune Braes Hotel we travelled south and passed Callanish, where we had begun the day. Soon after we turned off the main road on to the B8001, which is single track for much of its route with bits of two lane roads at various points.


The route is amazingly picturesque, with lochs with water that seems somehow to be a bluer shade of blue. With no fuss or great selling of the natural beauty, as there might be in other parts of the world, these things simply stand there looking spectacular. I keep wondering why no one had ever told me about the beauty of these islands about which I knew so little until I came myself.

As we proceed we go past hills that have old abandoned houses that are gradually settling back into the countryside and may to future generations be as fascinating and inexplicable as the Duns we had visited this morning.

The hills are also full of fast running streams over rocks forming new topography as the water makes it way through the rocks down to the nearest loch or estuary.

I've just re-read this and it sounds somewhat lyrical, and I think this expresses the impact the views and scenes had on both of us. An amazing landscape that we would strongly recommend to others - though, I guess, dependant on dry weather, as I suspect these windy roads would not be easy drying if instead of light we were in dark, wet conditions, which are not uncommon on the island.

Finding Uig

Drew had read in one of the books at the accommodation about the wonderful bay of Uig, but finding it proved to be the challenge of the afternoon. This is because though Uig does have a bay, the villages and headlands which surround it are not a specific place called Uig, but in the broad area of the Parish of Uig, but each with their own names and distinct sign posting.

We began at the Uig Community Centre and headed off in four different directions, all which had different views of the Beach at Uig. We first travelled to the village of Timsgarry, which is the site of an old chapel. The photo to the left shows the view of the Beach from Timsgarry, the photo on the right shows that the view was good, but the route inaccessible without walking through someone's garden.

We next turned up a route signposted for Aird Uig on the C40. The mention of Uig in the title sounded promising, and the experience was interesting. After passing a small traditional village with wonderful views down to the sea, see photo, we suddenly felt like we were plunged into the Truman Show, with regular shaped houses of a 1950s look where people were standing in the gardens greeting each other and the passers-by (us!).

The route got weirder as we went through a gate (which had a welcome sign on it) and came to Gallan Head, which it turned out had previously (with the 1950s village below) been the RAF Base called Aird Uig which was a key radar point during the Cold War. The base is now decommissioned and the buildings are gradually falling into disrepair, which on a windy headland like this will, I think, not be a slow process. 

The pay off for coming to such a strange place with a much more modern history than anywhere else we had visited was that the views from Gallan Head are really superb. There was one other tourist, and his dog, on the headland. Looking as surprised as us at what he had come across, a place which got no mention in any of the books or leaflets we had read about the area, but a great find all the same.

So we travelled down from Gallan Head and took the road below the Timsgarry road which was signposted Crowlista. This road brought us right down to the beach of Uig on the northern side. Yes those are sheep on the sand in the left-hand picture, not an unusual site here (apparently). 

So we had finally got a good view of the beach we had been seeking all afternoon. But still we had not been able to walk on to it. So we headed off again on the fourth road that leads away from Uig Community Centre. This road was signposted for Ardroil which we had not heard of before. Low and behold after 2 miles of seeming to head in the wrong direction the road bent around towards the beach. The first sign we had that we were where we had intended to be was the memorial to the famous Uig Chessmen, a set of Norse chess pieces found here in well preserved condition in 1831 - the originals are now in the British Museum and the National Museum of Scotland.


So, finally, we got to Uig Beach and it is a remarkably wide and broad sandy beach facing the Atlantic. It was full of young people swimming and sun-bathing. It was great that it have given us a purpose for this afternoons travel.

We left Uig at 4.30pm and travelled back the way we had come this morning arriving back in Crossbost at 5.30pm. We had a quiet evening watching the sheep outside and looking at the loch, had cheese sandwiches as our snack and again were in bed for 10 pm.