The "Easy Walk" around Carloway

2/6

I bought a book on Tuesday at the Island Life Museum called "Walks in the Western Isles." Today was a very nice day -- cloudy but no rain, cold, but no wind. I decided it would be a good day for a walk, and headed out to Carloway broch, because there was an easy walk listed there that sounded like fun.

Before taking off on the walk, I first climbed the hill behind the broch, for views of the broch from above. I've been wanting to do this for some time, but this was the first time I had enough light and good enough weather to attempt it. The views were spectacular!

Next I followed the directions in the book (which I carried in my pocket to keep me on track), which said to walk down the road from the broch until it ends at a culvert crossing a creek. There a track turned to the left and I followed it as instructed along a fence until the fence ended, and then around to a wooden plank serving as a bridge across another stream. (At this point the book did not match what I found. The book said this footbridge was stone. I should have taken this as a warning, but didn't.)

From there I was to climb straight up the slope of the hill called Creag Mhor, which I did, and was greeted by the promised spectacular views of Loch Roag and the islands.

From here the book got difficult to follow. It said to descend to the greensward on the cliffs below, but there was not a particularly good way down there. I picked my way down, following some sheep tracks, and found myself along the cliffs. It was beautiful here -- totally quiet except for the surf on the water and the occasional call of a bird or bleat of a nearby sheep. It was hard to want to continue the walk, it was so nice in this location.

I finally convinced myself to go on, and turned right to head North along the cliffs, as instructed in the book. This was fine for a while, and afforded more beautiful views of the rocks and water. At one point I hit a spot where I couldn't find a way to continue along the cliffs (even unsafely, much less safely), so I turned and climbed up a hill instead, and then went back down the other side to the sea edge again.

This brought me to a point, where there were craggy rocks leading out to a cliff with a cairn on the end, but no obvious way to reach that point. So, again, I climbed a steep hill and headed around and about to get back to the water. (Meanwhile, the book only mentions that you have to carefully pick your paths from the sheep paths, but makes no mention of walking many hundreds of feet up steep hills and back down, all completely out of view of the water. The book specifically says "continue along the cliffs, keeping the water to your left, until you come to fence..."

I walked on an on, constantly returning to the water's edge where possible, but each time finding my way blocked if I continued along the water too long, and having to turn back and find a path over another steep hill and back down. On top of these high hills, I saw no sign of the promised fence.

The description of this walk in the book says:

Distance 4 - 5 miles
Time 2 - 3 hours
Terrain Easy walking underfoot but hilly. No paths but some useful sheep tracks.
After walking this far, I've come to a new understanding of "easy walking." I was out of breath each time I climbed any of these "hilly" places, and there were MANY of them. I was getting exhausted fast, and the sun was setting. I started worrying that I'd make it back to my car before dark. I started thinking of the Sound of Music and "Climb Every Mountain" every time I had to head back up a hilly expanse.

After many hills and many points along the water, I finally came to a fence. There was a narrow track along the outer edge of the fence, as promised. I walked along this path, hoping I was actually in the right place. I reached a point mentioned in the book where there is a stile over the fence to allow you to walk on the other side where the land has slid on the side of the path. I returned back over the fence as instructed, but at this point, the fence ended, and so did the path, as far as I could tell.

The instructions said to regain the path beyond the landslip, but I didn't see any clear path to regain. It was getting fairly dusky by this point, and I was finding the book to be a bit unreliable, and I didn't want to continue along the water's edge if the path wasn't there. I finally decided to head back over the fence and across the fields towards Dun Carloway, where I had parked. I couldn't see Dun Carloway from this point, but I had seen it often enough along the walk to have a very good idea of where it was. So, I headed across the field in this direction.

I passed through a couple of gates into different fields. On the second entry, a bunch of sheep came running up to me. They almost seemed like they were going to stampede me! They were so excited to see me, and the whole time I was in the field they followed me around in a huge herd, often surrounding me. They were quite disappointed when I went out the gate at the other end of the field.

A couple of fields later a few more sheep started following me around. I guess they were all hungry, but I found this really unusual behaviour for sheep, especially in light of all the sheep that had run away from me during the rest of the hike.

As I was walking, I was heading up steeper and steeper terrain, and getting more and more exhausted along the way. I started fearing that I wouldn't have the energy to make it back, even if I had enough light. I had dressed really warmly because it was cold today, not taking into account the lack of wind and how much work I would be doing walking this far. I was getting seriously overheated. It was a struggle to keep walking, but I plodded on until I finally crested a hill, and ta-da, right in front of me was the vista of Dun Carloway, and not even that far away! I was struck with huge relief. I looked around at the surrounding fields, trying to find the easiest route back.

The best route appeared to be to head on across the field I was in to the gate at the end, which went into someone's back yard. From there I walked through their inner gate to their driveway, and out their main gate and onto the road. From here it was just a short walk up the hill on road to my car. I had taken off my coat, hat, gloves, and scarf by this point, I was so hot. I collapsed into the car, quite relieved to have made it.

I've been sitting around the cottage the last day or so feeling cold for the first time in days. Now that I'm back, and showered, and watered, I'm still feeling quite warm. Amazing what an "easy" walk will do for your perspective.

It was a lovely walk, but I don't think I'll take this book at its word about the difficulty of the walk, or the exact details again.

Return to

Friends and Northern Lights

Or read the description of the

Butt of Lewis at high tide