The only option, then, is to head north and as we pull into line for the ferry, we see a man in a high-vis jacket.
“Are you Ronald?” Asks Wee Mo.
“No, he’s doon there on the boat,” says the jolly conductor, “He’s ma brither.”
So we give the £3 to his fatter, jollier brother and hope that by being honest humanity will improve in some microscopic way. When the boat sets off, we find ourselves accosted by a cheery many from Edinburgh by way of Tiree. He’s lived in that sunny place for five years, and it seems to match his demeanour. He hits us with the big sell, spending most of the half-hour crossing telling us why we absolutely must move there. I met people like him in Dubai, people who seem to be reselling the idea of their lifestyle to themselves as much as to the poor bastard who has to listen to it all. Issues like inequality, injustice and quasi-slavery used to slip into the void as the starry-eyed shitsack extolled the virtues of sweating it out in the desert for money.
Anyway, Tiree sounds a good deal more pleasant, regardless of how it’s sold. But that’s not our destination – nope, we’re going to arrive in South Uist, race up through Benbecula, then spend the night on North Uist. The stranger from Tiree doesn’t rate any of them, not compared to Barra, and certainly not compared to his island.
So we give the £3 to his fatter, jollier brother and hope that by being honest humanity will improve in some microscopic way. When the boat sets off, we find ourselves accosted by a cheery many from Edinburgh by way of Tiree. He’s lived in that sunny place for five years, and it seems to match his demeanour. He hits us with the big sell, spending most of the half-hour crossing telling us why we absolutely must move there. I met people like him in Dubai, people who seem to be reselling the idea of their lifestyle to themselves as much as to the poor bastard who has to listen to it all. Issues like inequality, injustice and quasi-slavery used to slip into the void as the starry-eyed shitsack extolled the virtues of sweating it out in the desert for money.
And he kind of has a point. The roads are flatter, the buildings more often pebble-dashed, the ground is a bog. Barra was indeed more bonnie, but the Uists aren’t totally without merit – or adventure. Towards the northern tip of South Uist, we take a turn off a lane to a destination unknown. Along the way, we meet a small gang of semi-feral horses who block the road and set about chewing the wing mirrors. As Wee Mo is something of an equinphobe (?) it’s not much fun.
It’s the second time in as many days that a local animal has saw fit to harass us – having dealt with the miser, a randy bullock invaded our campsite the night before and chased us around a bit. Wee Mo headed to the roof of the car while I made one pitiful attempt at shooing it away before jumping into the passenger seat. Marwood showed more backbone than I did…
The driving, punctuated with several wrong turns and feral animal attacks, takes most of the day and by the time we get to North Uist, we just want to set up camp and have an early night. Hayfever has made over-ripe raspberries of my poor eyes, so I’m especially keen to get out of it all. We pick another western campsite, this time brand new with shiny appliances and an all-new kitchen. Unfortunately, it’s all so new the fucking power hasn’t been turn on: there’s no hot water, no power to charge anything.
When the owner turns up at 8pm to collect the money, I’m ready to refuse to pay, until she explains her predicament. Out here in the middle of the Atlantic, the church still has a disturbing amount of power and leverage over the people. Roughly speaking the northern islands – including North Uist – are ruled by the Prods, while the south is dominated by the Catholics. My disdain is pretty equal for both groups, though what with one thing or another I’d say the Catholics are slightly more deplorable – not to mention the 14 years of my life my parents and grandmother conned me into wasting on, what Christopher Hitchens called, "a clutch of hysterical, sinister virgins".
But it’s joyless Church of Scotland who cause more problems around here. Up on Lewis, the northernmost territory (it’s not an island – more on that later) in the Outer Hebrides they’re especially mental. In the last two years alone, a minister handcuffed himself to a set of goalposts to protest a group of wee boys having a kick around on a Sunday – if there was ever a better time to practise power volleys… Similarly, Calmac Ferries have been damned to hell and back for daring to run services on a Sunday, thereby further opening the islands to sin, development and so on.
Anyway, here on North Uist, the religious mafia also decide whether or not people get land, and if they get the land, they then decide whether or not to give them power, water etc. So though the wiring is sound and the money has been spent, the Church of Scotland have delayed making a decision on whether or not to power up the campsite, even though the tourist season is well and truly under way. True to form, they’ve hampered progress.
Cold and dirty we battle the driving wind to set up our tent, fruitlessly trying to shelter it behind the car. With the pegs loosening with every gust, we decide to take a walk along the beach, partly in the hope that the lack of plants will grant my ruined eyes some respite.
If it were possible to ignore the cold, you could transport this beach to anywhere in the Indian Ocean and it wouldn’t look out of place. At least until a rough-and-tumble sheep dog bounds along to bark a hello.
From a distance the dog looks as though it’s got badly made-up eyebrows, but when it gets near we see it’s been blessed with startling blue, lupine eyes. Closer inspection shows that they’re not one colour, but many – a kind of David Bow-wowie.
If it were possible to ignore the cold, you could transport this beach to anywhere in the Indian Ocean and it wouldn’t look out of place. At least until a rough-and-tumble sheep dog bounds along to bark a hello.
At the wrong angle, they make the creature look quite wicked, but when we look closer, we see that the orbs look more like watery little planets, and that the more we look at them, the more beautiful they become.
And around then I realise that in this mysterious pooch’s peepers I’ve found more peace and more wonder than I ever did in Christianity, and I think: if I can just keep looking perhaps I’ll discover some monumental, irrefutable truth and possibly some universe-altering enlightenment. And a great, grey curtain will lift and I’ll see the world anew, and in doing so become a new person – a better person, full of love and empathy. All I have to do is keep staring into those wild, foreign spheres.
But then the dog takes a piss, barks and fucks off again.
