2024 Outer Hebrides – Fuzzy Water
Day 09 Saturday 24th Aug – Meavaig South – “Otterly” Fabulous by Debbie Hughes
Time to move on from the campsite and take the 9.30 ferry across the Sound of Harris from Berneray to Leverburgh where we had a quick stock up at the shop and a coffee stop. Then on up to Tarbert in North Harris where, joy of joys, Keith had found us a cottage for the week as the forecast was still not promising pleasant camping/paddling weather. As the cottage wasn’t available until 4.00 p.m. we had plenty of time to spend on the drive up there, stopping off to watch the surf crashing in on the beautiful sandy beaches on the west coast. It had a view of the famous Losgaintir beach from the road.
We arrived at Tarbert still with ages to go before we could move into our new lodgings. Frankie, our sewing guru, had discovered there was a Harris tweed museum not far from the village so we did a detour down “The Golden Road”. This was apparently named as a reference to its colossal construction cost, these 21 miles of single-track tarmac snake their way up the east side of South Harris through, at times, a lunar-like landscape composed more of rock than grass.
But…. we had only gone about 3 miles when a slipway appeared on the left at Miabhaig and we were going paddling! This idea was not enthusiastically received by some of the party and eventually only some of us kitted up and got on the water and set off in the wind and rain.
The plan was to sneak round the edges of Loch Ceann Dibig and back….We got as far as Aire Druirecleit point and the wind picked up so the return trip was hard work getting back to the top of the loch. We were having a breather up against the low cliffs at the head of the loch when an otter was spotted on a small rocky reef only about ten metres away. He/she/they proceeded to entertain us for at least five minutes, diving for food and doing typical ottery stuff, crunching crispy crabs while lying on its back in the water, diving down again and again and coming well out of the water on returning to the surface. It seemed oblivious to us being there and got steadily nearer to us providing an excellent photo opportunity.
Eventually, otter decided it was time to go… relying on Keith for pics – I didn’t take a camera. It was a real treat to watch and made up for the otherwise soggy, windy paddle. and we returned to the slipway.
