Wednesday 05/07/04

Have my breakfast at the early hour of 9 am, as mrs B and myself are off to Ness later in the morning. They are resurfacing Shell Street at the James Street roundabout. Bus is late in leaving (10.35), and the fares have gone up to £4. Still good value for a 25 mile trip. We fly across the Barvas Moor and pick up the young lady who the driver had been warned to expect at the junction there. Another passenger is thrown into total confusion by the driver's question "do you need the van". Normally, the bus to Ness is a large coach. This is a mini-coach and the supplementary question "do you need the feeder-service" doesn't help either. She throws back "Is this a bus?" and takes a seat. Other passengers tell her what the driver is on about, and she tells him that she wants off in Shader, 4 miles up the road. A shower has passed by. The moor is white with bog cotton and yellow with other flowers. At Galson, a lady joins the bus who stayed with mrs B last week. She is now going to stay at the Cross Inn. The driver drops one passenger off at Edgemoor Square, before depositing us at the Eoropie beach access road. Seas of flowers stretch in all directions. It's only 11.30 and we have 2½ hours until the 2pm bus back. We amble through the flowers towards the beach, half a mile away. There we sit down, paddle in the sea, chew dulse and relax for about an hour. Eoropie Beach is beginning to look like Blackpool by 12.45. Two people in the sea with surfboards and their dogs. A group of 3 elderly folk, camping in their campervans on the Habost machair (the ch is one consonant, pronounced as the ch in 'loch') strolling along the tideline. A family with 2 young kids playing in the sea. There is a 5 ft swell going with some nice spray over the rocks by Cunndal and further south towards Dell. We head for the tearoom (www.eoropaidh.co.uk, see the webcam!) for a sandwich and a cup of tea. We have a look round someone's weaving shed and meet the lighthouse cat who moved in after the keepers left the Butt of Lewis Lighthouse in '98. When the bus comes, we once again meet mrs B's erstwhile guest as well as an old friend of mrs B's, whom she has not seen for years. Unfortunately, there is no time to talk, as he is alighting and she is getting on. We drive to Port Nis, then to Adabrock and Habost. The driver pulls up outside hishouse in the village and switches off the engine. He jumps off and says jokingly "see you all at six" (it's 2.05 pm). Fortunately, the driver returns to his coach at 2.20 and we head south. We pass through a shower and come by the Dell Fank, made infamous by Calumannabel on BBC Island Blogging. We drop off the same young lady in Barvas that joined us there on the way up. Return to town at 3pm, when the research vessel James Clark Ross is just leaving port. The driver very kindly drops us off on Island Road. I head for the shop for a few bits, and have an easy evening. Entertain the lady who is going to St Kilda on Friday - she went round the West Side by bus today.