Beinn Heabhal

Today David decided that we were going to climb Beinn Heabhal which is the highest point on Barra at 383 metres. This is because Davie is an Anderson boy, and like his father and brothers he feels the need to climb everything he sees! So we set off on a sunny but windy morning and parked the car at the road called the Glen at the back of Castlebay. Davie planned a route that circled north-west round the slopes of Heabhal. We were climbing over a fence when an ancient man who I think was the farmer shouted at us to get off it, but when we went over to speak to him he was quite friendly and showed us where the gate was. The ground was marshy in places and quite tussocky. David is such an interesting and pleasant companion on a walk, today he told me that if the lichen is bushy, as it is here, it shows that the air is clean. I am quite unfit so I had frequent rests, David was very encouraging the whole way up, even when I stepped backwards onto him at one point when he was sitting down! When we got to the top it was well worth it - beautiful views all around us of Barra, Vatersay and other smaller islands. After taking photos of each other at the trig point we set off back down - I wanted to visit the Lady Star of the Sea statue which is about 100 metres lower down facing Castlebay, it's lovely, the baby Jesus has a star held in his hand. However this led to us descending by a steep and muddy part of the mountain - we both kept slipping! We soon got safely back to the car and made our way back to the cottage via Tesco. I have had a relaxing luxurious Mother's day bath with my Molton Brown Blissful Templetree bubble bath, one of two Molton Brown products which David surprised me with this morning as a gift from my three boys! Now I'm sitting in the living room of the cottage blogging but I can hardly concentrate because my eyes keep being drawn to the amazing view from the window, the sea is quite rough and big waves are lashing against the rocks below. I love watching the sea, today it is a dark steely blue but as the waves rise up there is a much lighter, almost turquoise behind the white of the crest of the wave. There are huge plumes of spray shooting up into the air when the waves hit the rocks. It's spectacular.