West Side V - 22/02/05

Resumed today where I left the coast walk yesterday: outside Bragar Cemetery. The weather was bright in Stornoway, but overcast on the Westside. I am told that it is common for west and east Lewis to have completely different weather patterns. A shower looms up on the western horizon, but moves so slowly that I have ample time (half an hour) to eat lunch at the same picnic benches where I had tea yesterday afternoon. Very pretty spot. I can even update the written diary until 1.35. The rain then commences and I am on my way. Just north of the cemetery I come across a broken stile, and I have to go right onto the coastal cliffs to negotiate the fence. I nicely arrive at Loch Arnol, and walk onto its shingle bank. The outflow, once reached at 2.10, proves to be impassable. It’s deep and it’s fast. I cannot cross it, not even at sealevel. Swearing sulphurously, I find that I have to double back all the way to the main road 1 mile inland. And I have to put up with bogs (8 inches deep), a sewerage outfall pipe (yuk) and all sorts of horrors through Cargol and Leicanish. Walk along the river to the road, then head up into Arnol on the far side of the Bragar River. Just before the busshelter and past the geese, a farmtrack leads me back to the outflow of Loch Arnol, opposite the point where I had been unable to cross. Seventy-five minutes after leaving the outflow on its western bank, I have reached the eastern side. Five feet in 1¼ hour, tut tut. I turn my back and resume the eastward trek to Bru. This is only 2 miles and I make short shrift of it. Coastal scenery is once again impressive, but it requires a head for heights. The moors rises gradually and obscures the 100 to 200 foot high drops down to sealevel up to the very last minute. Today is definitely not my day, as I tear my waterproofs on a barbed-wire fence, which I later find out I didn’t have to cross in the first place. I circle Loch Eirearaigh to the footbridge, up the hill and into Bru at its northern end at 4pm. The village stretches for 1½ miles. Contemplate checking the traverse into Barvas, but whilst walking down the road through Bru, I can see that the bridge is still marooned in water. Have to wait for the bus in temperatures barely above zero. Chilly