Barra and Vatersay

Barra is a spectacular island. We took the ferry from Oban, a small but busy town on the mainland, and spent several hours passing through and by some spectacular scenery. At one point, a school of dolphins or purpoises followed the Caledonian MacBrayne ship in parallel with us. A magical, albeit long, trip.

The first view of Castlebay: perhaps not so nice. It doesn't, on the approach, look that pretty. But looks can be deceptive, and several wanderings around the centre of the town soon formed an attachment with it.

Our bed and breakfast, a few minutes from the ferry terminal, was warm and friendly. We were greeted with an expansive tray of tea, biscuits, cookies and cake. Genuine hospitality, and warm too. Immediately, we noticed that the accents here were much different to those in Lewis and Harris, having a more distinctly Irish lilt to them; or perhaps that's just the people we met.

We spent several days on the beaches, and exploring the island as well as Vatersay. And, my God - the beaches. Even in the rest of the Western Isles, I have never seen beaches so ... perfect ... as the ones on Barra and Vatersay. The larger of the two islands being circular, it was easy to get around on the bus and walk on every beach. Every beautiful beach. Vatersay was a bit of a hike, across a causeway and round bendy single track roads for several miles, until we came to a narrow stretch of island with a brilliant beach on either side. Which is where we stayed, and picnicked, for the day. One other thing - Vatersay appears to be a place for naturists as we saw not one, but two, couples run naked into the sea. Odd, and the water looked cold. But each to their own.

On the top of the island, and a little to the east, you can see the Uists. There was some debate and confusion about whether Barra was part of the Uists or not, but the majority of people thought not. Perhaps, as locals, not surprising. It's at that location on Barra that we saw a plane land. On the beach. And this is how people "commute" between Barra and the mainland. Seriously. Apparently the local member of parliament lives on the island, and when he's not in Westminster sticking it up 'em, he's on his farm (croft, here) tending his sheep. I feel I must look up his travel expenses at some point.

Places to eat and drink. Outside of Castlebay, these are few and far between, though in Castlebay itself there's a surprisingly large number of options if you explore a bit; certainly enough to provide variety for a week or two. The bar talk was friendly to obviously English mainland tourists like us. I mentioned access to the Internet and broadband at this point, which caused a roar of somewhat cynical laughter from the bar tender and the customers. It appears that Barra would be at the end of the chain of wifi relay signal masts, of the notoriously unreliable system I've heard about on other trips (and other people have now commented on, on here). There is little, possibly no, faith that the system will work in Barra, and people were hanging on to BT or someone else upgrading the exchanges.

Would I live here? The beaches are the best I've seen in the Western Isles, and I've seen quite a few now. The people seem more relaxed, and less money-oriented, than those further north. The community seems more at peace with itself than islands such as Berneray. I didn't have any English-oriented hassle. So it's tempting.

But the communications seem extreme, possibly a bit too extreme for me. The five hour ferry ride, to end up in Oban. The flights, in a tiny plane that must surely be subject to the weather. And the Internet looks like it'll be unreliable dial-up or nothing for several, or many, years to come. Barra is isolated, more so than the other islands in the Western Isles; perhaps that's why there is such a strong sense of community there.