Independent overland travel through Africa in a Unimog called Moglet

Alarms at 7am, I'd forgotten what a joy it is to have to get up when it's still dark! Morning ablutions performed (by us and for Moglet), we made it to the ferry with seconds to spare - cutting it so fine, the lady in the car park had to radio on board to see if we were too late to be accepted. But we squeaked on just in time, and after squeezing Moglet into a little gap in the corner, we went upstairs to see what was around. And naturally sniff out some toast!

Up on the outside deck we could look down onto the vehicles below, and its quite odd to see Moglet from above. I forget sometimes that she has useful things like sand ladders and solar panels! There's something exciting about ferries too I think - even short trip ones like this. It's like the start of another chapter in the adventure, going across to a whole new land where there's lots of new experiences to be had and new things to play with.

Arriving at the ferry terminal at Lochmaddy on North Uist and driving the first couple of miles was a whole different feeling to how we felt after we first 'landed' on Skye. The sun was shining, visibility was fantastic, the roads were lovely and smooth, and I didn't see a knackered fridge or an unwanted bike in a ditch anywhere!

Our first stop was to take a walk to a stone circle and then over the top of a hill and back down again to have a look at a chambered cairn called Barpa Langass. On the way were chatting about deers and how cool it would be to see some while we were out and about walking, rather than spied from Moglet, and then what should we see a couple of hundred yards away but a lone deer watching us! We moved a bit closer to get a better look and then stopped short and just watched her, watching us. We didn't get too close though, no point getting close enough for her to feel like she has to move away - we're on her turf rather than the other way round, so why should we feel we have the right to freak her out so much she has to move?

Deer sighting quota for a day satisfied, we carried on up the hill to the trig point - an awesome 36m high! Bearing in mind how flat the rest of the land around us was though, the views were fantastic.

Onwards down the hill to the cairn, which is apparently the best example of a chambered version on North Uist (and thats saying something, there's bloody loads of the things!), Jason naturally felt the need to have a better look and peer through the 18inch high doorway to see if he could see any bodies inside. No bodies, just lots more rocks, a spiders web or two and piles of sand everywhere from the sandstone rocks slowly succumbing to the elements. I was happy to stay a bit further back, much less risk of death by cave in, or deadly spider bite. You can never be too careful about these things...

Back in Moglet, we next tried our best to find two different standing stones, but no luck. Perhaps they'd fallen over?? Eventually we conceded we weren't going to find them and moved on to Baleshare Island, a tiny little place accessible by permanent causeway. Driving to the very end of the road, we followed a stony track around the back of the sand dunes and parked up behind a stone bank, with Moglets nose pointing into the sea and about 50m from the waters edge :-) With plenty of light still to play with and the sun breaking through the haze we took a stroll on the beach so Jason could have a little scavenge - he was particularly taken with several white pebbles he found, which ended up adorning Moglets bumper for the evening. Who would ever have thought we'd find another smashing beach like this out here, in the middle of nowhere just off the coast of Scotland? I couldn't resist writing the year in the sand - we'd done something similar on a beach in the Maldives a year or so ago - apart from the fact one of them was taken wearing a bikini having spent a day diving with turtles, and the other was taken whilst wearing thermals and a woolly hat, its almost uncanny how similar the photo's are!

With the sun going down and a hazy, rainy front looming on the horizon we made our way back home, looking forward to our high class meal of fish fingers and spaghetti :-)