i live in hope

After the agricultural show, I took a walk in the nearby Balranald nature reserve, along a perfect little beach and then around a rocky headland. The light was dimming.

What is it with me purposefully going to nature reserves to try to see something, fails, and spontaneously sees barn owls on the side of the road?

Machair field, in the tall grass of farms nearby, the hoarse crow of corncrakes could be heard. One arguing with the other.

Finished the day wild camping near Scolpaig tower, a folly set in a seaside loch.

Day 5

When I woke up the next morning, a young barn owl flew overhead, and a group of farmers along with two border collies started herding the sheep from the nearby field off the hill. The farmer sat in his quad bike slowly rolling along the hillside like a napoleonic general, he shouted his commands aggressively, intermixed with loud whistles. There's a system to it that I didn't understand. It was fun to watch the dog at work, who appeared to be flying at its master's command, little paws barely touching the ground as it dashed out, crouched before the sheep and stared at them to get them moving again. The herd trickled down the hill reluctantly, whining and stalling. Once the dog had done its work, it hopped on the back of the farmer's tractor. It's very very cute, the dog obviously enjoyed working.

Then the sun came out.

There's this article online about the abandoned island of Vallay, which you could walk over 2 miles of tidal sand to reach. It talkwd about the Edwardian mansion that has now fallen into ruin, how because ruins lie empty, it invites people's imagination to fill the space with stories. Something along those lines. I rememebered the first ruin I came across as a child. In my grandfather's village there was this burnt down house. My cousins and I wandered about the place, poking at it, posing as sleuths to deduct what might have happened, who lived here, what kind of people they could have been...

Maybe that's partly why I am so attracted to and fascinated by ruins. They are malleable places where history have been erased and reality forgotten, and in their absence, fantasies could be allowed to run wild. It's the freedom of dreams enjoyed in conscious hours. What's not to like about that?

The mansion in question. It is now surrounded by a glorious meadow.

Crossing the tidal sand.

Before crossing over, I had an hour petting the ponies and a single horse someone kept in a field right by the sea. They would graze, look at me, saunter over for scratches, and then back to graze for a bit more. The big horse actually chased a pony away from me so they could poke their gigantic head over the fence. The bully was petted on the nose.

There were four other people also crossing over, encouraged and reassured by their forms now walking briskly further and further out, I set foot onto the sand two hours before low tide, which was an hour earlier than planned. As a result, the amount of water still remaining and one deep channel that I had to cross proved my "put plastic bags over my boots" unsuitable and I had to walk barefoot. The sand is hard. The ripples uncomfortable to step on. Fragments of broken shells stabbed my feet from time to time. The wind came in from the south east, tearing right through me. I could not think. I was fatigued and stupified by the wind and slightly disoriented. (as I was walking back, due to not having the abandoned manor as a landmark, I walked out to sea aiming for the northern tip of Vallay instead of for land. If there hasn't been a couple walking about half a mile behind me, I would've panicked...)

sand pool

It is very strange, walking about 4 miles to and back the island over sand, bare feet sloshing about in warm, shallow water. The weather is temperamental, as strong wind propelled the clouds ever northward. Shadow would fall upon me for a minute, as quickly as it came, it was lifted, and the water would glimmer, dazzling me with pure white streaks of light. I followed tire marks made by a farmer's car, and recognised the boot prints of a couple who had gone before me. I stepped next to the prints. I am light, the sand is hard (you can land a plane on it), my barefeet left almost no marks at all.

I was wading through a dream of fleeting shadows and an elemental existence. The sound of my footsteps was the sound of water disturbed by my feet. I was walking in a very undignified manner, one hand grasping an increasing amount of shells, another holding the shoestrings of my boots, I made small tired steps, leaning into the wind. But who care about dignity when you appear as but a dot to the next human closest to you, who is a mile away.

I thought, jesus christ for god's sake I am so sick and tired of this infernal wind.

Nice shells I picked up.

After Vallay, I had to race to Berneray for the 5pm ferry. The sun is out even more. The clouds created layers of blue of different hues over the shallow sea. Cycling further north, the sea became a deep mineral blue, I thought about grounded indigo.

I was determined to see a sandy beach near Berneray. After some striving against the wind, here it is, a dream like sandy beach.

Look at this shit, how is it real. If not for the chill and the lack of palm trees, it is like the caribbean. Not that I've been aside from playing AC: black flag. But look at this shit.

Caught the ferry. I met three other cyclists, who were also completing the way. I would meet them several times later on, and spend a lovely day with one of them in Inverness.

This is the same experience I had in Orkney but to a greater extend: there is, basically, only one route. Many people have more or less the same schedule. There was a couple who I cycled with briefly and sat down for dinner with, started out with another German couple on the first day, their schedule had aligned so well, they were going to have dinner together in Stornoway, the final stop. I met a father and son duo on Lewis, again in Stornoway (same hostel, well, there's only one hostel), in Inverness, in Edinburgh. Strangers in cars would greet you and encourage you: "I saw you cycling, you are doing so well!" And there was a family who apparently saw me practically everyday. We stayed in the same campsite, and on the last day visited the same cafe. There was a bit of comradarie going on. But I'll get to that later.

It's sweet to experience.

Cycling to campsite on Isle of Harris at dusk.

I got the idea of biketouring at all, was due to a lady I worked with in the shop, who in her youth biketoured the western isles before it was popular. Who, back in the day, stayed in Homore Hostel in the middle of South Uist and saw a corncrake. So here I was, following her footsteps and stayed in the same hostel.

Some fantastic company and conversations were had here.

My main point in staying at Homore was so that I could cycle to the nearby RSPB nature reserve. I saw almost nothing, but as I walked back (slightly dejected, having only seen stonechats that were of interest), I saw my first female hen harrier. Just such a wonderful, agile, completely graceful bird.

Was promised otters, none was seen.

Also surprised me was the tiny carnivorous plants growing on the blanket bog here. These red, tendriled little freaks are round leaved sundew, they are in the same family as the venus fly trap. The whole colony of freakish plants fhat were red, yellow, or shaped like deer antlers, looked like the surface of an alien planet when up close.

Day 4

At Homore, one of the backpacker heard in Stornoway that North Uist has an agricultrual show going on from 11am until 4pm, although there being 35 miles between Homore and the show, I decided that I could make it. I flew before the wind like the devil was behind me, thank goodness the Uists and Benecula are very very flat, and I made it in just four and a half hours.

By then, the sheep/dog/horse judgings were well over, and the horses and dogs have left the grounds. What was not over however, was cattle judging, a sort of a cow pageant with the criteria being "who is the best with milk" and "who is the best for breeding". Here be the country gentleman judging the cows, walking around the pen with a long stick, pointing out each part of the cow with interest and some commentary.

Sheep were still there.

Including the diabolically beautiful Hebridean Sheep.

So were the prized flower arrangement and prized... potatoes. That sort of thing.

first prize potatoes...

My brain was not quite idle as I was cycling that 35 miles as fast as I possibly could. I was putting new words to the tune of "magnificent men and their flying machines" so as to make a cyclist's anthem for my morale and entertainment.

Here it goes:

the magnificent men (gender neutral) on their bicycle seats

they go up tiddy up, they go down tiddy down

they cycle the country and see all the scenes

with their up tiddy up and their down tiddy down

up, down, cycling around

spinning the pedals, they keep forging on

they're all frightfully keen

the magnificent men on their bicycle seats

they cycle around with their bums in the air, their nose to the bar and they don't give no shits

they fear of no pot holes, no dogs and no cars

they conquer all hills, with just the two wheels

the magnificent men... (repeat chorus)

up, down, cycling around

spinning the pedal, they keep gaining ground

they're all frightfully keen

the magnificent men on their bicycle seats

a cycling man has no need for a roof

they've been cycling so long, they are now weatherproof

be it rain or snow or a hailing gale

or a head wind so strong that could topple a cow

the magnificent men (chorus repeat)

if you see these men going out and about

huffing and puffing

get stared at by cows

please keep all your pity just to your good self

take a look at their faces

they're enjoying themselves

the magnificent men (chorus repeat)

i'm a cycling man with my tent on the rack

with my bed on my back

and the sun on my neck

(change to a slow melodic tune)

cars~ they wave me by~

birds~ they fly by high~

me~ on my squeaky bike~

we go on, on, on, on

the magnificent men.. (chorus repeat)

I was really bored.

Beach near the famous flat sand of Barras Airport.

I cycled over hills, through machair fields with bunnies running around and tall yellow flowers, pass the airport where planes land on sand, then take a turn to Ardmor and pitched up on the shore right next to the ferry terminal.

At dusk, I heard this strange howling, half like a wolf and half like a man pretending to be a wolf. Propelled by as much curiosity as fear of the supernatural, as I was quite alone in the area with moorland all around, I skirted a fence and went out to shore to investigate. The howling turned out to be a small islet (more like a rock cover with grass) just off the mainland that is inhabited by many seals. Through my binoculars in the dim light at the end of the day, I could see their rotund sillouettes lumbering about the place.

So, it was not Hebridean Werewolves.

The sunset came upon me slowly, I watched as the sun lowered itself into what seemed to be a bank of clouds. It grew thiner and thiner, until it was a pin point of red, then went out in an instant.

Day 3

Hectic start to the day, pack up everything in forty minutes to catch the 6:40 ferry towards Eriskay, the island where the bonny prince Charlie landed, and my entrance towards the Uist islands.

causeway, eriskay to south uist

The weather gave the island a foreboding and desolate look. South Uist is relatively flat in the west where almost much of the land is crofted, mountains could be seen far to the east. After the almost miniature island of Barra and Vatersay, at times it felt like to me that South Uist was too open, there was too much space for a single person traversing its landscape, too much free air to breathe, an unattended creature would grow wild and out of shape here, extending its branches in search of contact but never touching boundaries. I thought of prairie fever.

Lovely walk through machair, extensively burrowed by rabbits. Sun was out.

The Hebridean Way kept going west until it touched the sea. Behind a high bank of flowers and dense vegetation and what seemed to be a storm barrier made of huge blocks of stones which I clambered over, was the beach. Inland were piles of patterned pebbles, down the slope of pebbles was sand that seemed to stretch for miles.

Once again, I thought I had crossed over the threshold and died. And the oyster catchers and curlews stalking the shore over there, they were the birds of paradise.

Further northward, passing through crofts where skylarks could be heard, houses across the field (always in the distance, no matter how much I cycle, I never come close to any), the mountains to the east were merely a suggestion, a shoddily painted backdrop, I was cycling in a snow globe.

Behind another meadow with death like perfection:

Was an empty beach. Perfectly sandy. Tiny tiny pieces of broken shells half buried in the sand. Some sort of dark insects flee before me, hopping. The only footprints visible was that of either a horse or a cow. I could see for perhaps a mile north and south, down the length of the beach, and there was not a soul. The sea sky was dark, grey waves crashing into grey sand, throwing trembling sea foams. Broken pieces of sea foam tumbled along with the wind.

I stared at the sea and saw my death.

And death doesn't give a shit.

textures of the beach

At Homore hostel in South Uist, someone who's been staying there for five days now pointed out that he had so far met many people who are between places, who's going to start something new after the trip or have no notion where the next stage of their life would be. He himself is the former.

This island chain might as well be a threshold where we could shake off the rain, take our shoes off and shut the door in the face of the wind outside. Just for a spell.

I packed up my things: a replacement three men tent that's way too big and heavy ("my palace"), too much clothes for the season, too much fuel for my purpose, a jacket that's too warm, a bike that's under-serviced (it's rusty, it's squeaky, the brake pads are about to go, the gear wouldn't shift to the smallest wheel, it's something of a nag but it is my good old trusty nag), and set off.

Day 1

Early train to Oban and then a ferry to Barra, the gateway to the island as it were.

About 20mins onto the island, cycling from Barra to Vatersay where the beginning of the Hebridean way is, I discovered 4 most important things about this here island: 1) it's windy, 2) it's wet, 3) it's got the most pristine white beaches, with blue and turqoise water lapping gently at the perfectly curved sandy shoreline, 4) they've got cows on beach. Well, cows everywhere to be honest. In my haste of setting up camp in a field reserved for common grazing, I put the door of my tent half a metre away from a pile of semi-obsorbed-by-nature-but-not-quite cow shit. Of a pretty respectable size.

As the sun sets at 10 and the day is still young (sun? what sun? thick fog was being blown into my face, drizzles came and went. whatever solid enough to combat the wind and cling fast to the land and not bend an inch: the grey austere-looking stones (lewisian gneiss), the lone houses with dark windows, they lie there, still and silent, as the wind went right through me and the rushes and the few small trees in people's gardens), I went in search for the abandoned landraider village of Eorasdail and the alledgly beautiful beach of Bagh A'Deas ("south bay").

Near death experience? The islands would do me one better, repeatedly they made me feel like I have died and have been removed to the beyond without my knowing. It's not the underworld, and not quite heaven, but it seemed to me I have been returned to a world where creations had no layer of varnish on it, like a house with the bricks showing, like an animal stripped of flesh, it's a world of raw colours and the barest of elements. The creation exposed itself to eyes used to a more veiled and polite reality, and therefore I concluded, I must have passed on.

That's Bagh A'Deas to me, I dragged my increasingly waterlogged boots through the machair, all blooming, every colour is at its prime. Where it's sandy, thin red roots (frail looking) sprawling across the white sand like veins seeking succour. And I arrived alone at this deserted perfect little beach, in the distance loomed the uninhabited island of Sandray. A single set of seaward footprints. The colour of the sky and the sea mingled at the edges and bled into each other.

Deserted is not the word. The beach appeared lifeless save a single gull bobbing up and down in the distance. What struck me was the absence of organic matter. An unthinkable situation where nature goes on without the involvement of anything alive.

Maybe that's why I thought I must be dead, and have been returned to dust and water, because that seemed to be all that surrounded me at that moment.

Trek on to the village, haunted husk of it could be seen, between us was the boggy grazing land and a fog that has turned into rain.

And with that, my first day was done. My boots (poor choices was made there) and socks have became soggy wet. What worried me more was the weight that I was carrying. The short journey between Barra and Vatersay, over some moderate hills, had felt excruciating to me. I decided to buy a new tent the next day if I can, and post my existing one back home.

Day 2

Nope, no luck there: "We usually have smaller tents, but this is the only one we have now" said the only shopkeeper on the entire island, and maybe of the whole of outer hebrides outwith Stornoway, in posession of a tent, pointing upstairs where apparently there was a four man tent covered in dust.

Despair, desperation, acceptance: the mental turmoil was over in five minutes. The ferries have been booked, the trip has been planned, there is no way but through.

Church in Castlebay.

My initial plan was following the Hebridean way towards the airport and the ferry, in hope of finding a suitable place to wild camp. The west coast is hauntingly beautiful.

Then I realised, wait a fucking minute, I forgot to climb the highest point, the hill on the other side of the island close to castlebay! There is a statue on top of the virgin mary and baby jesus that I really wanted to see. What could I do but to complete one and a half circuit of the island and go climb the hill?

The hill is not tall, but as I climbed I also ascented into the clouds. Driving wind, lashing rain, thick white fog, I could not see five to ten metres in front of me. "Mush on!" I thought, as I followed the trail religiously.

Where the hell is the statue?

Where the hell is the paranomic view promised to me three thousand yrs ago. All I could see is a paranomic view of white.

As I went downhill, the weather started clearing up, and the statue emerged. I passed right by it, but as the fog is white and the statue is white, I missed it completely. It looks out towards Castlebay. The statue is known as "our lady of the sea".

It had the look of a wayshrine out of a fantasy game.

Adelbert passed through the innocent tunnel on his bike aware of only the motion. It is a tunnel of colours of layers after layers of dirty graffiti illuminated by the colourless luminescent light over head that gave off the warmth of a dead fish, gutted, massaged, marinated in soy sauce and spring onions, 10ml of desire, anxiety, nostalghia, fear, insecurities for abandonment, longing for approval and dread for mortality that's quite unique to new year's eves, and ginger. Adelbert wanted to tear their face off and chew it like a piece of molding jerky. They wanted to lick the damp rough gritty walls and taste the colours in motion. The texture of the road as they travel over it, in uncontrollable motion, face down, bottom up, the tarmac scrapes away first his lips and then the enamel over his teeth and then the teeth themselves. Adelbert wants to taste motion, of which he has been a helpless, unwilling but utterly delusional and therefore begrudgingly willing victim by patting himself on the back like a sacrificial animal in an existential crisis, too lazy to find another meaning in life. He is in motion, this is the sane, right, normal thing to do, or so he has been told and told himself and those around him.

Adelbert has two friends in the city, they might also want to tear their respective faces off. Perhaps that's why they are friends, sharing the same firm foundation of being in downward motion and wanting to tear their faces off, the same toothache in their brain and in their heart and their throat when they want to speak and their bones and tendons when they want to move but cannot muster the spirit to.

"I am a mute bride for you and I am blind when I look at you." Adelbert said, last night, to Nice Legs, "That's real." he said, pointing at the bluetooth speaker that was playing Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb on a low volume, "The colours in the innocent tunnel, that's real. I want to eat them. They seem to be the only real and therefore nutritious thing within a four mile radius." then he turned his blind face towards the beautiful blue/green eyes of Nice Legs, "And you are kind of real."

"I am real." Nice Legs said, ignorant of the veil of reality being draped over him, the chair he was sitting on, the table with its lamps mugs teapots and cables (mere bulges under the veil), the stacked bicycles, the tv that refused to be turned on, like white cotton sheets being draped over abandoned furniture in an abandoned house. The ambiguous shapes infused the furniture of potential, monstrous and suggestive, thus concealed. The soft warm photons of the bluetooth speaker penetrated the veil and glowed in diffused yellow. It is real. Nice Legs was ignorant of the unreality of their environs, the desertion, the abandonment, the neglect, the crumbling roaring emptiness as muffling as a rough fibred synthetic door mat being pressed into their face. Struggling for a sniff of dust. But he could see. He has never had any other kind of sight, there is no sense of loss when there is nothing to be lost. "It might be an insult to suggest that I am normal. But I've been trying to be normal."

"No, I wouldn't say that you are normal. You are just well grounded in reality. While I am not completely there. I mean, here." Adelbert said, gesturing around him with a sweep of his hand.

"Well, anyways." Adelbert smiled, placating.

"I am afraid." Nice Legs said, his beautiful eyes reflected specks of light like they were about to turn into liquid, like fresh water ice on the brink of melting.

"Whatever for?" Adelbert had an inkling of an idea.

"You will disappear completely, turning inward. People do that, you know."

Adelbert smiled again, "Ah, anyways."

As Nice Legs is one of the few real things in the house, when Adelbert is not breathing in the photons with his face pressed to the bluetooth speaker playing some repetitive droning layered vibrations, he wants to eat Nice Legs. He has recently developed a lust, an appetite out of severe and prolonged deprivation, he chases after the real, he could walk on his knees on setted streets begging for the real thing, sniffing for it in the cold wet northerly wind that carries in horizontal rain from the firth. Razor sharp teeth cutting through skin and tearing flesh apart and the veil of reality into shreds. And beneath the veil is the edible substance that he longed to devour. Sometimes, in Nice Legs' presence, he flexed the muscles that control his jaws discreetly, indulging in the desire to close them around Nice Legs' nice thick fleshy stubbled neck and snap his heavy bountiful half-naked pretty head right off. Which he doesn't do. Because that's not what friends are for. And Adelbert is quite aware that Nice Legs might appreciate the privacy and dignity the veil of reality affords him and would not stand for having the fabric torn off, he might not fancy the vulnerability and pain and shame that could be the result of such an indecent exposure. He might be a crab and would fall apart like a sack of organs when having his armor dismantled. And Adelbert is all about consent.

Adelbert was no longer in motion, she was pinned down into the sheets like an insect. She was being crushed and she could not breathe. Bug juice seeped out of the joints of her shell as the downward pressure increased. Her head was scooped up, a very real, very physical hand under the back of her head, so that she was no longer falling downwards into the future.

She was playing the mute, bruised bride for Nice Legs, everytime a virgin.

"I thought you don't like it." Nice Legs remarked several times.

"I don't." She said, amended, "I didn't. I still don't find the need to do it with anyone else."

"What is different with me then?" Nice Legs smiled, masculine pride radiated off him like poison.

"I don't know." Adelbert said. She knelt on the foot of the bed and pressed the bountiful half-naked head of Nice Legs to her sternum, between her small flat breasts that made her feel like a child.

She does know.

They remember and sometimes still see in worn-down colours (like trying to piece together a narrative from the panels of an old and faded rug), the reality of shame and horror arose from her disgusted childish flesh like a tropical sun arising from 800 acres of half-composted vegetable matter, like the pungently sweet smell of rot when a spoiled bag of pork was sliced open and its congealing creamy white juice dripped out of the cut, it ascended upwards towards the ceiling, gathering into a miasma of suspicion. She is still looking for it - the childish distrust formed over an old wound - kneeling on the bed. Nice Legs perspired and breathed harshly into her chest, her arms felt his sweat sticking to her skin only because she felt her heat being whisked away as the sweat evaporated into the silence and darkness that permeated the house at 3am. She looked out of the door, ajar, almost completely dark, at the top of the stairs that led down into the living room and the kitchen. She waited for the horror and shame that would ascend those stairs, sour poisonous sweat being secreted by its pores leaving a trail of wetness in its wake. There was a tranquility in the waiting, she was still, she was patient, as life walked towards her with the predative self assuredness only seen in men wearing expensive leather shoes, with the inevitability of a car crash, just out of sight, behind the corner, off the bend, beneath the last visible step of the stairs.

She swallowed her spit in anticipation and heard her own long dormant voice, it stirred in her throat like a larvae, waiting for her to search in herself for something to talk about. Or cry about, if words were not forthcoming. The walls of her innards were dry, like abandoned concrete swimming pools in the Moroccan desert that only have water in the tourist season. She could not cry. When she does, she always feels as detached and unfeeling as a cast iron water fountain. Tears were pumped by an invisible force through her body and out of her eyes, cleansing her system of emotions like an enema.

"It's so quiet now." Nice Legs mumbled.

It is, not a single car passing under their window. The night bus had stopped but the first one in the morning has yet to set off.

"We should go to sleep." Adelbert said. She was still cradling Nice Legs' head over her sternum, like an overweight hard-shelled ball-shaped fetus that has fallen asleep after a night of fits and torment. When Nice Legs pulled out of her, she looked downwards towards her opened legs, and felt that she had just given birth. A part of her had been separated and grown into the man towering over her in the dark, twice her size and age, asking to be touched. She obliged and stroked the back of his sweat drenched neck like a child, a virgin, a mother, a cannibal, a fond anonymous dog-loving hand. They perspired and drifted towards heat death. Adelbert wondered if they only embraced so that two dead battered bodies could reduce their surface area and delay the inevitability of losing the last of their warmth. They perspired like candles.

"Like sensible adults." Nice Legs said.

"Exactly." Adelbert said, chuckling.

Adelbert wants to stay still. They want to be reduced to the size of particles, of a single dust mote of white chalk, and hide in the grooves under somebody's shoes. If they float up and down or sideways, there would be no consequence. The fall would be so gentle, the impact so tender, for they are so inconsequential. They want to tear their face off and burn it like the letter from TV licensing. They want to employ a poet who is adept in the use of cut-up and black out, who could fish their head filled flooded exploding with words to make some sense of the soup stew puree blocked kitchen sink of their mind. Adelbert wants to stay still and not sink into the sofa fall through the floor and get pulled downwards into the dark endless tunnel of time.

They fall together. If they maintain the same velocity, does it mean that they are staying still relative to each other?