Outer Hebrides Campervan Roadtrip pt1: Barra and Vatersay

In this blog we share our Outer Hebrides campervan roadtrip starting off on the beautiful islands of Barra and Vatersay in the south. Seemingly, we bought the blue skies and great weather with us for this first part of the trip.

The journey from the Yorkshire Dales is a really scenic drive along the A65 taking in the views of the 3 peaks. It is just under 5 hours to drive to Oban and we decided to break up the journey with a stopover at the Drovers Inn just north of Loch Lomond. It is a great pub stopover - free if you are having a drink or a meal. We were surprised that we were the only van there as it was the first weekend of the school holidays. The food was standard pub grub and reasonably priced and it was really busy with hikers and residents doing the West Highland Way.

We had a stop off on the shores of Loch Lomond on the way past to stretch our legs and as we had made such good time we also took the opportunity to walk a small stretch of the West Highland Way which was really beautiful.

With the ferry leaving from Oban at 1.30pm the next day, we had plenty of time to explore a few places on the way. The ruins of Kilchurn Castle was our first destination on the shores of Loch Awe. It is in such a picturesque setting and with it being so calm, the waters on the loch were like a mirror reflecting the views across the lake. There is a small herd of highland cows that graze the moorland by the castle and on this particular morning they were waiting by the entrance gate to greet us.

Next stop was the very ornate St Conan's Kirk with its grand semi-circular Apse and Ambulatory (I had to look that up!) It is a lovely church to look around and there is a small cafe there, sadly we had to keep moving to get to the ferry.

The crossing from Oban to Barra is the longest ferry crossing to get to the Outer Hebrides and is over 5hrs but the pay back for that is that Oban is so much easier to drive to than Ullapool and Skye.

In the end the crossing passed really quickly as we bumped into 2 of our lovely subscribers Sarah and Steve and chatted for ages. It was a really calm crossing and we got into castle bay in the golden hour just before sunset which lit up the castle beautifully.

Our first destination on Barra was Wave Crest Campsite which is on the west coast and we screeched to a holt on our pitch just in time for the most glorious sunset over the sea. Life at that moment could not have been any better.

Wave Crest was a great little site with good facilities which included a small kitchen area for washing up with a kettle and a microwave. The showers and toilets were clean, luckily we had bought a stock of £1 coins as we have learnt the hard way that many of the islands campsites charge for their showers.

One of the places we were really keen to revisit was the island of Vatersay that you can get to over a short causeway. We were hoping to find a space to camp for the night by the community centre. There are around 15 designated camping spots that you can park up for the night at for a donation of £10 and even better, there are toilet and shower facilities available.

It was quite busy when we arrived at midday but we found a quiet spot which we shared with a motorhome on our first night and had all to ourselves the next.

The community centre has a fantastic cafe that serves the most wonderful cakes! They were that good we had to go back and test out a few different flavours.

Vatersay has become instagram famous due to its little gate that leads down to one of its white sandy beaches. Everyone who visits has to get a photo of the gate. We got several at different times of the day as the light changes.

We spent 2 glorious nights on Vatersay, the sunsets were sublime and the beaches never ending. There are 3 main beaches on the island and all within walking distance from the van. All 3 have perfect white sand and crystal clear waters, yet each are unique in character.

We did a circular hike that explored them all and gave us great views across to Barra. We found the ruins of an old hamlet whose only inhabitants now are the cows that roam the moors.

Sat cooking our tea one evening, we were entertained by watching an eagle circling around the sand dunes searching for his prey in the golden hour before sunset.

It was a great opportunity to slow down and sit on the beach enjoying the sun and reading our books before we continued our travels. We enjoyed a warming campfire on the beach whilst watching the sky turn red at sunset. The weather gods were certainly on our side for our first few days of island life.

Slowly heading north on the islands, we returned to Barra. We had set our sights on climbing Barra's highest peak - Heaval - which includes a visit to the statue of the Madonna and her child. It was a beautiful clear morning and we were rewarded with the most beautiful views across Castle Bay.

From the peak, we could see all the tiny bays dotted around the island of Barra and we spotted one particular beach that connected to lots of tiny islands with its white sandy beaches at low tide, we made that our next destination and were not disappointed.

Our final destination in our explorations of Barra was the extremely unique airport. It is quite an experience to watch the plane land and take off as they use the sandy beach at low tide as their run way. There is only one scheduled flight a day and the plane carries only 16 passengers on it's flight to Glasgow.

On the opposite side of the road from the airport is one of the most fantastic beaches on the island - Traigh Eais - with its huge sandy dunes, wide expanses of sea grass and wild rolling waves that come crashing in.

Our last night on Barra was spent at a small campsite on the Northern peninsula, Croft no 2. It is owned by a friendly local trawlerman and has a non electric camping field right on the sand dunes above a gorgeous little beach. There are electric pitches on the main part of the campsite across the road. There is only one shower and toilet but they were newly renovated and spotlessly clean. The views from our pitch were spectacular and with it being low season we had the whole campsite to ourselves.

After 4 nights exploring Barra, it was time to hop onto a ferry and move on up through the islands. Our next destination was Eriskay and the Uist islands. Very different in their geography and we were looking forward to finding out what they had to offer.

You can catch up with our Barra adventures in our latest YouTube video on the link below:

Look out for our next instalment on the Uists.

Have a great week

Jackie and Richard