by Giblets » Fri Sep 02, 2011 8:51 am
Date walked: 02/09/2011
Time taken: 14 days
Distance: 368 km
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The Timeless Way takes in the length of all 10 inhabited Outer Hebridean Islands - Lewis, N. Harris, S. Harris, Berneray, N. Uist, Benbecula, S. Uist, Eriskay, Barra and Vatersay and is about 230 miles (plus the swimming between islands!) and is based on the book "The Outer Hebrides - The Timeless Way" by Peter Cooke. I completed it in 14 days at the end of June this year.
It was much tougher than I'd imagined and the walks were very different from those of The Pennine Way, The Offa's Dyke Path and The Coast to Coast which I've done over the last 12 years. There was much more road walking than I'd imagined and most of the off road walking was over very harsh, wet, muddy and boggy moorland. If I never, ever see sphagnum moss again it'll be too soon! Moreover there were hardly any marked paths and without my trusty Garmin GPS and the route from the LDWA website I would have struggled to find my way, especially from Kinlochroag to Bowglass via Kinlochresort. But I did it without any serious mishaps or nativagional malfunctions and parts of The Way are just out of this world.
One thing that makes this long distance walk rather more difficult than others is that, unless you set off with someone else, you're almost certain to walk on your own all day and quite often not see anyone at all. Getting lost, breaking a leg, etc. just doesn't bear thinking about. You really are on your own!
