The Isles Eriskay, South Uist and Benbecula - First trip to the Outer Hebrides

Those campers are right next to the Politician Pub.
Not a bad place to wild camp!

Got up at about 5:30 am to be ready to drive away from Borve and Castlebay to catch our ferry from Ardmore to Eriskay.  This is the one that left at 7am! Not our first choice, but so happy to have reservations we were willing to deal with the early start.

The Politician 

This island is famous as the setting for a historic event that was memorialised but the movie “Whisky Galore”.  This was when a ship wrecked off the coast of Eriskay and the locals managed to find and hide most of its cargo of whisky!  It is a funny movie and well worth watching, even if it is a bit old fashioned. The main pub on Eriskay is called “The Politician”, named after the ship that sank and caused all the fuss.  My goal was to get a whisky there.  Unfortunately, the ferry was much too early and this pub was not even open for breakfast, not even a coffee.  Oh well.  

We drove on since it was rainy and there, again, was no place to park this large motorhome.  We drove through Eriskay and even through much of South Uist before crossing a causeway and finding a place to stop at Loch Bee.  This loch has various birds on it I thought Alan might like but it is raining too hard to enjoy being out in it.  I know, this is Scotland and the Hebrides so what did we expect?  How about just breakfast and a bit of a nap? Then we will face the Scottish weather a bit more bravely!

Well, it is almost 5pm and it has rained all day. We checked into the Shellbay Caravan Park, on the Isle of Benbecula, which apparently is very near to a beach. But we have hunkered down, slept, cleaned the drawers out, worked on my crocheted hat (I always have these going when on road trips, I save them up and give them to a friend who collects things for the local women’s shelter at Christmas), edited pictures, and will cook soon.  With any luck, this is our only day of typical Hebridean weather!  *During this 8 day trip, I crocheted 8 hats to donate!)

The park itself looks nice, no wifi but a huge, American size wash machine at no charge. But there is no place to dry clothes and the weather is not conducive to hanging anything out.  Tomorrow is also Sunday and we will be going to North Uist where the Free Church of Scotland is the main religion and they are exceptionally strict on lots of Sunday activities, including hanging out washing.  So let’s hope I packed enough socks! 

Kenzie did get to go to a beach near our campsite at Shelbay, but it was not as nice as the one on Vatersay.  Not sure we will see one nicer than that, but I am still openminded!

No matter the weather, these islands are wonderful!