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Day 5 - The long straight road

Pyro / 06.07.2008

The final day of the Hebridean Challenge and the sunshine was well and truly out in force. The wind hadn’t entirely dropped, but what do you expect on the Atlantic coast of Lewis?

Teams were raring to go for their final fling, but the day would turn out to be much longer than they had anticipated. The kayakers were first to leave from the beautiful Bostadh beach, paddling down the east coast of Great Berneray to the Calanais Stones visitor centre. Runners would depart at the same time, taking in checkpoints on Dun Barabhat, on a small island and the summit of Conostom, crossing over the Atlantic bridge onto Lewis and tagging their road bikers to move round to Calanais to meet the kayaks. From here, the swimmers were launched for an out-and-back, fighting the tide in both directions. While the fastest swimmer, Lars Hyllested, would make it back in 16 minutes, the slowest took over 40, as the currents flowing through the small inter-island channels sapped the strength of the swimmers.

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