The view in this photograph above shows the entire village of Clachan-na-Luib on the island of North Uist, looking approximately east-south-east.
One morning at reveille in 1962, Cpl Mick Powell woke up in his top bunk, stoked his briar pipe with his favorite St Bruno tobacco, (Or was it Erinmore, about the only brand the NAAFI carried?) lit his pre-breakfast smoke and after several minutes of puffs and contemplation announced that it would be a good day for a 'real' hike to 'that mountain to the north'. What prompted this has never been particularly clear to me, as it wasn't actually a very good day, being a bit overcast and cool. However he quickly had quite a lot of support but as the day wore on this dwindled to just a few.
A small problem was that we had to work during the day, during which we made no plans at all, and set off after our evening meal in the cookhouse. We had no map, no compass, no water, no food, no protective clothing and we had no idea how high the mountain was or even which island it was on. The party consisted of Cpl Mick Powell, Cpl Geoff Moxon, Cpl John Walker (me), Cfn 'Daddio' Thaddeus and two other non-NCOs, and the only sensible thing some of us did was wear our army-issue boots and thick socks.
We turned east out of the camp at Balivanich down the only roughly paved road until we picked up the main road across the causeway to North Uist at Gramsdal, where our sixth member turned back; he had been wearing lightweight army-issue plimsolls and was already in blister hell. The causeway at that time had not been surfaced, and consisted mainly of sharp gravel.
As we crossed the causeway from Benbecula to the island of North Uist we were overawed at the speed of the turning tide, and a few puffins who took no notice of us. About the middle of the causeway we met a crofter walking in the opposite direction. He somewhat nervously said "Good Evening" to us; he was the only person we saw on the whole hike, and we had seen no vehicular traffic at all. After passing Griomsaigh we were nearly half-way to Cairinis (which some of us pronounced 'Garnish') before we felt the meadows were dry and secure enough to cross. We were about to leave the main road and cut across the fields and marshland between the crofters cottages when the other non-NCO couldn't decide whether or not to turn back. My memory fails me here. I can remember Mick Powell insisting that he either turn back while we were still on the road or not turn back at all and stay with the group, since this one man by himself with his total lack of experience would soon get lost and might not survive in this countryside. Turning back in another two or three miles was not an option. I can't remember if he stayed with us or not, but I have a feeling he decided to stay with us but changed his mind after about a half-mile. I seem to remember one of us (Daddio?) watching him make it back safely to the road.
We headed as much as we could for areas where the crofters had dug peat out of pits for their fires, as that was obviously the drier ground, but we frequently walked straight into boggy marshland where the ground never really dries out, or a small loch, forcing a detour of sometimes a few hundred yards and sometimes a mile or two. The ground was never high enough to obscure the view of Mount Eaval, which at roughly 1,200 ft is the highest point in the area. Sometimes we weren't sure which side of the mountain we facing though, as the sky was often cloudy and the only other reference point, Mt Marrival, was not as high, several miles away and periodically hidden. By the time we got to the peak of Mt Eaval it was a few minutes past midnight but still very light as the sun hardly sets in the summer.
We took a rest at the top. Mick was upset that he had run out of tobacco for his pipe. I took a photo looking back towards Benbecula, the only one I took on the whole jaunt. Naive and thoughtless young fool that I was, I didn't take a photo of our group.
The journey back was a nightmare. With no obvious landmarks in front of us and only the mountain behind us we lost our sense of direction several times as we took detours around dozens of ponds, soggy marshes and the occasional loch. In that terrain the wetlands are obscured by tufty marsh-grass and you don't realise that you're on dodgy ground until you're suddenly ankle-deep in soft mud and bracken. Extraction usually consisted of retracing the last twenty or thirty soggy yards, reconnoitering and working around the area. We were getting dog-tired, hungry and thirsty. About 3:30 a.m we decided for the first time to approach a solitary heavily thatched croft, but there didn't seem to be anyone around and we weren't about to break in. One of us found a bowl of water left out for the dog, which we weren't too sure about, but after scouting around we found a hand-pump in a lean-to shelter, so we took turns at that using the dog's bowl but the water was very brackish. By then it was starting to rain very gently, but we didn't care. Mick Powell seemed to have an uncanny knack of getting us back on the right track every time we got lost, and by 6:30 a.m we were back on the main road to Benbecula across the causeway. We still had five or six miles ahead of us but at least we weren't going to get lost again.
By this time we would have gladly admitted defeat and hitched a ride with anything going in our direction, but I can only remember two old cars going northwards. Despite sores and blisters we daren't remove our boots for fear of being unable to put them back on, but the temptation to wash our bare feet in cool clear loch water at the side of the road was very strong. Daddio however was still running up and down the road and would occasionally jump a barbed-wire fence to chase sheep across a field. I've never seen anybody with such stamina; he used to easily win 2-mile and 5-mile races without ever training.
It stopped raining as we finally made it into camp just before the cookhouse closed for breakfast. Fortunately it was Saturday and nobody had to work. We were piqued that nobody had missed us all night.
Sep, 2002
According to my recently acquired map, Mount Eaval seems to be about nine or ten miles from the camp as the crow flies, so although we didn't know it at the time we probably walked about three times that distance. Twenty-eight miles across rough country in thirteen hours is not bad, and that included about thirty hours without sleep. Not bad at all!
Aug, 2005
Geoff Moxon and I were reminiscing about this little adventure. We'd like to know what happened to Mick Powell, who came from the Isle of Wight, and Daddio.
Nowadays the European Union has tried to encourage tourism in the Islands, so the place is nothing like as desolate as when we were there in the nineteen-sixties. Walking or hiking trails are clearly marked, and accomodation is easy to find.
For more details go to http://walkhebrides.com/
Footnote, Dec 2005:
As chance would have it, Mick (now 'ex-Major Mike') Powell found the website this week and has sent me a variety of memories, all of which will be posted here as soon as I get a round tuitt.
His memory of our ramble is next.
Copyright - John W. Walker
The copyright of all photos on this website remains with the person who submitted them, unless
the photo is specifically marked as public domain. Details are shown with the
photos. Any use of these photos for use in any other publication is expressly forbidden
without the permission of the person who submitted the photograph.
Reproduction of part or all of the contents of any of these pages is prohibited
except to the extent permitted here:
These pages may be downloaded or printed for your personal
use only without alterations. This copyright notice must appear on any copy. These
pages may not be included in any other work or publication, or be distributed
or copied for any commercial purpose.
