Barra and Uist – Sunday 7th July

What an absolutely stunning island Barra is! Wow! We loved Harris and Lewis, and they had some awesome beaches, but for us Barra is the creme de la creme! Stunning white sand beaches and turquoise sea at almost every turn, very quiet, very remote, tiny little villages and scattering of houses here and there, it is just perfect.

And this is July, peak season, there seems to be hardly any other tourists here. The beautiful beaches, although not quite deserted, are just so quiet, just a scattering of people sitting enjoying the view, having a stroll or walking their dog. And Vatersay, which is adjoined by a small bridge, has 2 beautiful crescent shaped beaches on either side of a thin stretch of machair.

We slept with just the mesh closed over on our front tent door, so if we woke we could watch the sunrise. The sea air made for a good sleep, but I woke a bit before sunrise and for a short while enjoyed the sky beginning to light up before I went back to sleep again (sunrise is about 4.30am, so a bit early for rising!)

One of the unusual highlights of Barra is watching the one daily flight from Glasgow come in and land on the beach – the timetable for the flights is based on the tides. I believe this is the only airport in the UK where the runway is a beach!

The cafe at the airport does some amazing home made cakes, very generous portions too, one between the 2 of us was ample. Nice creamy cappuccinos also, again we would highly recommend.

After watching the fight land and then take off back to Glasgow, we returned to the campsite and took our canoe out for a wee paddle, it was so nice, and felt very safe as the tide was coming in and we stayed in shallow waters.

For dinner, as it ended up being a lovely sunny afternoon / evening, we decided to have a BBQ, however, either we timed it badly or the flies from miles around smelled the food, we were overrun with hoards of flies, the worst thing was we had also left the tent door open and several dozen ended up inside (just as well we had brought a can of Raid with us), so lesson learned, wait till late and cook inside the tent and / or don’t leave the tent door open when you are eating outdoors…

To end the day we watched what was probably the most spectacular sunset we have ever seen – check out our Exploreourworld Facebook page for photos…