Hebrides 9: Secret Seals (and other animals)

One of the worst kept secrets on the Uists (in nature circles anyway) is the existence of a beach on the island of Flodda, across a short causeway from Benbecula, which houses a colony of seals.  The basic instructions are as follows: park in the bus turning circle (it probably only comes once a week anyway), then walk through a series of fields until you find a rusty old car where there is always a piece of paper, sellotaped to what remains of the driver's window, giving the latest location of the seal colony.  Well, we had to, didn't we?

Just in case you got lost, there was the occasional signpost chalked onto pieces of slate.

We watched the seals for quite a while, but they were in the far distance and pretty well out of photography range.  Here is a single (bad) picture to show that I haven't been making this whole story up!

Yet more abandoned crofts with the rocky hills of North Uist in the background.

Exhausted after our day's travels we headed slowly back down the road (there is only one) to our cottage at the other end of the Uists.  I'll finish with a couple of shots of our nearest neighbours from across the road.

Working on the "good day, bad day" weather principle which seems to operate in the Uists, the tea-leaves were not promising for the following day.  The heavy rain wasn't due to start until lunchtime, though, so we kept our fingers crossed for a (relatively) dry morning.