Hebridean Challenge

Let\'s Meet at the Beach

Felicity Martin/Rob / 10.05.2002

The kayakers started the day again with an 18km paddle from Scalpay to Harris then back up Loch Seaforth – against the tide and into a headwind this time. They were graded into three groups, with the fastest going last so that they weren’t too spread out for the safety boats. The slowest paddlers were started further up the coast at Rhenigadale giving them 5km less to cover.

Remaining team members had a hill running, mountain biking and road biking relay cross country to the shores of Loch Seaforth. This started with the ascent of Uiseabhal and with yet another day of fine weather there were views back down to Scalpay. They could chose when they started; their aim - not always successful - was to have their swimmers in place on the other side of Loch Seaforth by the time the paddlers arrived. The swimmers were ferried across, then had to wait on the beach in their wet suits for their paddler to arrive and escort them as they swam back. The 700m swim turned out to be much longer for most, as they made a curving trajectory, drifting down the loch with the tide.

With no respite teams were then off again on a parallel run and road bike, crossing Lewis from east to west coast. In the quest to reach 160 ‘points’ over the 5 days of the race the first summit, Beinn a\' Mhuill, offered 20 points for every extra team member on top, and later in the day the runners crossed the top of Scalaval. On the slopes here are a series of beehive dwellings, one of many, many prehistoric sites in this area, including the stone circle at Callanish. Navigation is, as ever, vital in a race like this, a lesson learned by the runner from Border Reivers who climbed two extra summits before he found the control he was looking for.

A parallel bike section was running today too, and it was even possible to ride most of the way up to the highest point on Lewis, the 574m high Mealaisbhal Summit. (Lewis is joined to Harris –though they are often considered as ‘separate’ islands – don’t ask me why!) Runners and riders rejoined at Giosla, where the paddler was now also waiting to start the sea kayaking leg down Loch Rog, again against the tide, which was now on the flood. At Ungisiadar Narrows they had to revert to river canoeing techniques, fighting their way from eddy to eddy against the incoming current.

From Mealaisbhal there was a splendid view of Uig Sands – the final target for everyone for the day. Here the dazzling beach is a mile deep from dunes to sea and one member of each team mountain biked or ran across the rippled surface. At the far side they crossed a footbridge over a river and on to short turf for the final sprint to the overnight stop at the community hall.