After a stroll around Castlebay and breakfast I set off for Barra Golf course this morning. What an amazing place, talk about golf in the raw, this really was it! No clubhouse, an honesty box in an old container and just £10 for the round.
The course is 9 holes and has some beautiful views as you will see from the photos. All of the greens are fenced off by an electric fence and have a gate into them! There are no fairways as such and so it is fairly hard to find your ball but I only lost 1 in 9 holes so was quite chuffed. In fact where the fairways might be contain an additional hazard, some lovely cattle! The 7th and 8th showed the challenge of links golf. The 7th was 176 yards into the wind. The 8th was 170 yards downwind. I hit my 5 wood to the 7th (to 4 feet but missed to birdie putt) and hit 6 iron to the 8th and was a bit long.
I then drove to the north of the island and visited some of the amazing beaches on Barra, including Traigh Mhor which is Barra airport (the planes landing on the shell beach). The picture shows the baggage reclaim hall - a bit different from Heathrow! Had a nice coffee and cake in the airport cafe.
I then set out to climb Ben Heaval (Heabhal). There are no footpaths as such so it's just a question of yomping up the hill in a more or less straight line. The going was fairly boggy and pretty steep. The views from the top are meant to be well worth the climb. Unfortunately, my timing coincided with thick mist so I had no chance of any views. In fact, I was very glad of my OS Map app and GPS signal as I wouldn't have had a clue otherwise. There is a marble Madonnas statue on the way up and I was within yards of her but would have missed her without my iPhone. I made it to the top (383 Mts) but the only view I got was of the trig point.
On the way back to the hotel, I moved over to let a speeding local overtake me as he had been gaining on me rapidly. He actually pulled over for a chat instead. He'd been chasing me as he used to have a Morgan 3 Wheeler and started the conversation with "A Morgan in the Hebrides, och, bloody marvellous". As I parked up at the hotel I had a conversation with a guy from South Uist who works for the local authority. He is a biker (with Triumph Bonnerville in his collection) but has always hankered after a Morgan.
Back to Castlebay I then took the small motor launch out to Kisimul Castle which sits in the bay. It is the traditional seat of the McNeil Clan, the American branch of which restored it last century.
Another day with Molly's roof down all day but there was some rain just before dinner.
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