Saturday - a bit of a nothing day

We are off early tomorrow morning, very early 4am , so we don't feel like doing too much today. A lazy morning on the campsite, eventually getting ourselves ready to leave around midday. It's nice to chill. The sun is up, but so is the wind, and the sea looks beautiful

Before we leave the campsite one picture I forgot to add from yesterday, featuring our neighbours

Anyway, we meander on down to Castlebay. There's very little traffic, often a mile or two without having to pull over and let an incoming vehicle pass. And Castlebay seems empty too, we easily find a parking place on The Street. My replication of that 1949 Whisky Galore still shows the van on the left hand side, just below the line if the castle shore 

And I don't think I posted a picture of the imposing Our Lady Of The Sea RC church

The man at Calmac confirmed the crazy early start tomorrow and suggested that where we are currently parked is as good as it gets, and we'd be fine to kip there tonight. 

Island Life: the guy before us in the ferry office was enquiring about his car. Apparently he can't get it serviced here on Barra so it needs to go to a garage in nearby Eriskay which, those who have kept up with this blog will remember, is a ferry away, the ferry we used to get here on Thursday. To be honest I am surprised Eriskay is large enough to have a garage! Anyway, matey wanted to confirm that if he drives the car to the ferry terminal Monday someone will drive it on the ferry and off the other end (Eriskay) and park it for collection by the garage. Thinking about it, it may even be going onwards and over the causeway to S Uist which is more likely to have a garage! Who knows how far his car has to go to get a service! 

Not much else, found a charity shop, got moaned at by a Liz for buying another 7 CDs. 

Oh, we decided that when we get back we will replace the two way extension socket in the van with a three or four way one and will repair a draught-proof curtain by buying a length of that steel spring curtain wire stuff. Amazingly a tiny "we sell it all" shop here in Castlebay had a four way extension lead of almost exactly the correct length and a length of curtain wire. Back at the van we were able to effect the changes we'd anticipated doing at home. OK so they are a bit bodgy but we get to test them before I cut everything to exact length when we get back. Amazing that a) we could find exactly what we wanted given such a limited choice of shops and b) be parked up in the main street in town and effect such repairs. To put finding what we needed into perspective I couldn't byt an I newspaper today, the papers had missed this morning's boat! 

Dinner at the main hotel (there are two) was a bit expensive, and nowhere near as good as Am Polician in Eriskay - then for a pint in the neighbouring bar. A real Scottish boozer, hardly any women. And £5.40 a pint for bog standard beer ('bog standard' being a good phrase for most Scottish beer!)

One last island life snippet - a few times on the islands we saw small metal 'gantries' and wondered their purpose. We soon found out and today I could, at last, take a picture

Yep they are bases to lock your bins into to stop them getting blown away. 

Wonder if we'll get any sleep before 4am!

Just 17 miles today, we'll hopefully make up for that tomorrow

Suppose I better put my shoes on and wander down the road to the Calmac terminal to see if the free WiFi is still available. If anyone is reading this on Saturday evening they will know it is!