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The weather on this day looked rather promising, so we decided to head down to Barra from our South Uist cottage. However, on the ferry, the rain set in and quite a swell rocked the boat. This did not get any better once we arrived on Barra. I had planned to walk up Sheabhal but from the carpark overlooking Castlebay the hill was almost invisible and I decided to wait and see if the weather would improve.
This is how the hill looked on our arrival at around 2pm:
We drove down to Vatersay and walked to Bagh a Deas to have a look at Sandray The weather was still wet and windy but we did get to see Sandray and nice Machair with wild Orchids:
On the way back we stopped at the beach at Bagh Bhatarsaigh and the weather started to improve (Maol Domhnaich in the background):
In the meantime it was 3:45pm and the last ferry back to South Uist was at 5:30pm. The weather was getting better and better now so I decided to give Sheabhal a shot. The time window was not large enough to do the real walk from Castlebay all the way up so I parked at the afore mentioned car park up the hill, at the highest point the road reaches on the East side of Barra at about 100 m above sea level. This left me with 283 meters of ascent for which I had one hour give or take. Should be easy, I thought. The fiancé was happy to take a nap in the car in the meantime so I set off.
I was busy taking photos all the way up and did not really follow a path until I stumbled across it. The way up was more or less easy, a bit boggy from time to time and getting steeper and steeper. I climbed more or less directly the South face.
The views from somewhere on the way up were awesome: You see the main settlement of Barra, Castlebay, below. In the bay is Kisimul Castle, the seat of the MacNeils of Barra. You also see the Calmac Ferry "Clansman" leaving Castlebay on its way to Oban (a fine five hours crossing giving views of Coll, Tiree, the Small Isles and the whole Sound of Mull).
The two long headlands stretching out across the bay belong to Vatersay. Behind Vatersay to the left is Sandray, behind that the lower island of Pabbay and then Mingulay and Berneray or Barra Head, of the latter only the highest point is visible.
The weather just around the peak was still bad, I just walked into a raincloud and did not see the peak. I believed I was quite close but did not know really. That's what it looked like.
I always looked up hill to see where the statue was but actually I had already passed it and it was way below me:
Time was now running out and I decided to turn back and walk down instead of trying to reach the peak just to find myself in a wet cloud but to risk to miss the ferry instead. On the way down the views were still great:
Most frustratingly, as I was almost back down at the car park, the cloud disappeared and I could see the peak and also that I really had been just 20 or 30 meters below it.
Anyway, it was too late to return to the top and all of a sudden I heard alarming sounds from the hire car where I had let my fiancé, so I hurried down the last meters. She was fine but somehow the car alarm had gone off while she was sleeping on the backseat
We drove back North and had just a few minutes to take a few pictures of Tragih Mhor, the beach/airport of Barra:
After that it was back to South Uist where we saw the most purple of sunsets:
Even if I did not reach the summit, a good time was had and I always love returning to Barra so maybe I will get to the top another time
