That Got Away

Day 8; Still 537 miles from Oxfordshire

Today was our day for engaging with the Machair. I'd love to have some pictures of blinding white shell-sand beaches, lapped by azure seas, backed by stabilizing grasses that are eventually superseded (thanks to centuries old land management traditions practised by crofters) by extraordinary species-rich wildflower-studded pasture that supports all kinds of rare wildlife. North-west Scotland is the only place that has it. The Outer Hebrides has the best examples, right where we are. It is enormously important 

It's all there. It's amazing. The grassland is awash with flowers. The curving white beaches are wide and clear and studded with multi-coloured winkle shells. We found a nature reserve dedicated to its care and a walk out to a headland with clear views across this unique landscape in all directions

Today was the day the Highland gods decided we should engage with the west-coast weather: high wind, rain and mist, all in concert, blowing parallel with the coast, obscuring, obfuscating and blurring. Fine fun to engage in the battle with the elements and see what we wanted to see. Hopeless for striking images of a unique experience. So it goes

Earlier, we took our first inter-island ferry - following a narrow curved channel, only a few metres deep, from tiny jetty to tiny jetty. Weaving between visible rocky islets and invisible, threatening, submerged rocks, throwing up white water on the surface; navigating buoys like a slalom skier. Not a job for a novice captain! Terns doing aerial acrobatics around the prow; skuas spearing across our path just for the fun of it; gannets circling us, competing to get the closest wingtip to the water. Then the climax: a pair of sea eagles, fighting over a fish in mid-air, just a few feet above the water, one of them flying upside down. An Attenborough-class display. No, of course I haven't got a picture!

On the other hand, the wind has stopped, the sun is blazing and we are camping here, so that's all right then