It barely gets dark on Barra

It barely gets dark on the Hebredean isle of Barra in June. It’s a good thing; the Caribbean-esque achingly beautiful beaches need as much air-time as they can get. It’s truly unbelievable that the UK houses such a tropical landscape. But its sapphire blue seas come at a cost, and that cost is the joys and perils of true remoteness. There’s a job offer out for £100k to any GP who wants to take Barra on, and I certainly wouldn’t want to be first on scene to emergencies out here. But that’s ok, because people are so laissez faire on Barra that I doubt even a murderer would be bothered to hurt anyone.

There are two ways to get to Barra. The first is to fill a car with all of the essentials needed for a week of remote camping (read: tent, gas, food, maps, cash, blankets) and drive here via the skyline dominating ‘CalMac’ ship from Oban to Castlebay. The second, less sensible option is to fly; not to bring all the essentials that you need, in exchange for ‘the only scheduled beach-landing flight in the world’. Obviously, we chose the latter.

The Twin-Otter flight from Glasgow to Barra feels like a real life flight simulator experience (if that’s not too ‘meta’). The radar and throttle are within sight at all times to reassure you that you are on track, and any issues with the engine become apparent very quickly because you can hear the conversation about it. As the islands come into view within 15 minutes of leaving Glasgow, you suddenly become very aware of the narrow-mindedness in which we view the UK. Gone are the smokey cities and Thatcher-era coastal promenades. Think more cerulean seas and ice white beaches, mixed with Scottish highlands. After a smooth and splashy landing on Traig Mhor beach, the pilot, reminiscent of that cousin who you knew when they were yay-high who’s just graduated uni, welcomed us by propping his aviators (really) on his blonde hair and pretty much shaking each of our hands as we stepped onto the beautiful sandy beach. The airport had 5 tables in it, with a smattering of people excited to return back to mainland. Truly an (almost) individual experience.

Our first and most important discovery on Barra was that we should have rented a car. Our second most important discovery was that we shouldn’t have packed 20kg backpacks. Our third and fourth discoveries were that the campsite was an hour’s walk away and there was no signal. Excellent. Duke of Edinburgh revisited. Our chosen route took us over, and not around a significant hill and through, not around, a muddy swamp. I take full responsibility for this mistake, the over-ambitious view-hungry idiot I am. We arrived at the Croft number 2 campsite on the north side of the island not one, but two hours later, bruised, battered, relieved.

It was situated as per the photos on a 2km bay of idyllic white sand stretching generously off and around the corner. Up we camped in the otherwise deserted tent-field questioning whether there was a reason why no-one else was in tents, only campervans. The reason, we discovered shivering at 3am, with all layers including 2x trousers, 2x jumpers and hat as the sun began to peek through the pale tent walls. June in Scotland does not equate June in the Caribbean.

Our first evening was dominated by the search for camping gas, read: the need to eat. The campsite shop had let us down, with one neighbouring campsite owner revelling in telling me that he’s not seen the Croft No.2 camp shop open all year. The nearest (and only) shop was in Castlebay which was a 35minute drive away. Excellent, no car. After wondering around the campsite, hand aloft trying to claw even one bar of signal, we finally managed to get through to local taxi hero ‘Mr Cameron’, our knight in shining armour. Mr Cameron arrived a short while later, hair akimbo, in a shining but battered 2001 (probably) polo (probably). You get the drift, but he performed, jovially driving us to co-op Castlebay whilst divulging all of the island gossip; new police woman settling in well, Barra Island hotel struggling to keep afloat, local hospital has 6 beds only. On arrival we relaxed a little over a pint of Tennants picked up at the Craigard hotel, background music provided by a motley crew of locals, drunk and depressed, embracing stereotypes by singing that Christmas song by The Pogues. We slunk away to pinch the last table at the island-famous Cafe Kisimul. They were sadly out of their renowned scallop pakoras but the monkfish korma was a good second, and we were driven home, bellies full, by marvellous Mr C. as the sun completed its wondrous descent over the Atlantic at 10pm.

The next morning we snagged a lift back to Castlebay off some kind fellow campers on the hunt for bikes to relieve our transport issues. Sadly after a long hunt for the bike shop, the guy covering for the owner (‘not a natural businessman’, my words) could not guarantee us a way out of our Don’t-do-Barra-on-foot dilemma. So we trudged back via ‘Pedulas’ caf to drown our sorrows with food. I was nervous by the menu, which seemed to be extensive and based on freezer food classics, but needn’t have been when a tasty chicken burger arrived in a polystyrene carton. Moods once again buoyant, added to by the success of finally having found camping gas, we waited an hour for the thrice a day local bus. The ride home was a picturesque pleasure and we spent a calm evening enjoying the extremely generous 4 hour sundown over some delicious home-cooked pasta.

We chose to stay close to home on day three. The challenges of transport had somewhat overtaken the innocent beauty of Barra, so we took to our feet to climb to the top of _ on the north side of the island. Meandering through fields of wild orchids, which hide pink amongst the high early summer grass, we climbed our way up to some of the most impressive views of Barra. From here we could, in the distance, see the famed beach airport (arguably Barra’s biggest attraction) and just 100meters on the converse side of the island, another azure beach bracketing the northern causeway. We hiked down, miraculously arriving at the airport in conjunction with some serious plane twitchers to watch the daily display of plane-landing-on-beach. On balance, I was more interested in Barra’s only vending machine (hosted by airport) where I could get my metropolitan daily dose of Fanta zero, but it is worth a watch if you’re there. The facing beach is also worth a trip, with 200m of white sand spanning out until you reach the blue waters. We had our lunch in the dunes, feet slippered by the warm sand, and headed back over hills to the campsite where I went for an early evening wade in the crystal blue water, watching someone braver than me swim out of sight. Later on, we wandered out to the north headland to watch the sun lower itself over the lava-rock that covers much of the west coast. Sitting below the poignant whoosh-whoosh of the headland’s lone wind turbine, we windbroke one another as cormorants dotted the otherwise spotless sunset, and the day pacified at 22:30.