When Julia goes MOD !

It seemed all too familiar looking out the window this morning, rain, dark clouds, a barren rocky landscape and one hell of a Hebridean breeze.

This area in the UK (the Outer Hebrides) is one of the few places in the world where they call 100km hour winds a breeze making essential that any planned tour takes into account the prevailing wind direction (something I didn't do in 2015 for Monika and selves Scottish end to end cycle !)

With Pommie Kev and Julia on the road early Aussie Kev and I quickly visited the Castlebay Co-op for some emergency food supplies (jam donuts) before making our way with a magic tailwind to our 11a.m. Eriskay ferry. En route we had ample time to take in this wild and bleak geological landscape with its rocky peat laden fields, small glacial lochs and beautiful white sand beaches dominating the landscape.

Our 40 minute ferry trip was uneventful other than when the ferry ticket collector had a wry dig at us by telling us we were sitting (on bench seats) in first class and needed to pay a supplement !

Disembarking at Eriskay on South Uist we hit a cruel 20% pinch (where Pommie Kev got a royal serve from a following female cyclist for baulking) before battling a powerful head wind for teh short ride to a local cafe to meet up with with Robbo our Tibetan cycle mate who'd ferried across with his camper van earlier this morning.

From the cafe it was a cyclists dream ! Despite the cold foreboding landscape a power fuelled tailwind was right up our freckles (another Henleyism !) helping us to fly along the Hebridean Cycle Way.

Mid afternoon we finally bade a fond farewell to Robbo who then turned around to cycle back to his campground on his unique Inspector Gadget styled bike - what a delight it was to catch up with him !

From here it was plain sailing North other than for one incident where we stopped at the junction of what we thought was the turnoff to our accommodation . While Pommie Kev and I studied the maps to check our location and Henley looked skywards to study the migratory habits of the Hebridean Albatross, Julia at Pommie Kev's silent prodding kept proceeding along the turn off - no problem except the road went straight up a 15% hill into signposted Ministry of Defence property !!

By the time we'd realised where we were on the map Julia had now summited the hill and was in real danger of being conscripted into the Hebridean cavalry (the UK military budget is a bit tight) or even being locked up !

After a quick phone call Julia descended surprisingly with a smile on her face no doubt thinking what she could cash her hard earned 5,000 brownie points in for at Pommie Kev's expense.

Finally we found our correct turn off and made our way to our overnight accommodation the Orosay Inn for a well earned Hebridean rest with ongoing prayers for a continued Southerly top of our agenda!