Day 4

05 July 2007 - The major mountains of Harris await the experienced racer and the unwary Heb-virgin

The major mountains of Harris await the experienced racer and the unwary Heb-virgin - and they’re still all unmarked. Mission Unsuccessful! Well Megan did say that her lead team was flattered to be asked... JA is having nothing to do with this and reckons we can just tell teams there is no marker... but I am brazen in my determination and yes, Donald from Trotter Debris does graciously agree to run awfully fast, jettisoning tiny kites in just the right places on summits. Having set this up at the Scaladale Centre, I head north towards brightening skies…we are in Back Community Hall tonight, I trust that Willie - also my school janitor - has applied a bit of spit-and-polish to the building! Various sorts of troubleshooting before tackling the problem of a clutch of CPs to go out in ‘Point’. As I lived there for 16 years I really have no excuse: pity it is the first week of the school holidays and nearly everyone I know is away on the mainland, this being Exodus Week... I guess I’d better do them myself... I find a willing companion for this navigational exercise in SSO Jeff Allen, released from his sea duties in the nick of time. Together we have a very jolly afternoon in Point (O/S map calls this the Eye Penisular but it is never known locally as that) clad in T-shirts and sauntering (fast sauntering!) in wonderful sunshine. The place looks a picture! Our furthest destination turns out to sport a kite, attached to a large, rock-like lump of peat, atop Dun Dubh - Gavin obviously got there before jetting off to the sun...

Our afternoon is a sea of tranquillity. Unfortunately, tranquillity is not what greets us when we ring the hall to check in. Local caterers - pre-warned of the voracious appetites of AR folk but clearly catering with a wedding party in mind, have run out of food. This is not a problem we’ve encountered before: annual stalwarts like the Scalpay ladies and the folk from Great Bernera feed our competitors till their knees buckle - newcomers like DJ’s café at Iochdar have done pretty well, too.

I treat Jeff to a fish supper in Stornoway - the queue consists of some starving Hebites who are cheerful and resigned, I am grateful to discover...

Back at the hall there is not the flak I had imagined: I offer to refund folk their £10 meal fee but no-one initially takes me up on this. I am told the food was great: serving wenches piled up the plates but then realised, too late, that this was never going to feed 150 people. They reduced the portions so that more people got something. A few tail-enders (including us) went hungry - or would have without the ‘chippy’!

Thursday night means my own bed: Yippeee!