Yellow waymarkers trace this walk – they wander around and are sometimes quite spaced out - but generally help you pick your way through the boggier moorland.
[1] Ask the bus driver to drop you off at the turning for Na Gearrannan (NB206426) in Carlabhagh village. Take the paved lane sign posted for Na Gearrannan.
Down to your left is an ancient drover road that took fish from the coast across the moors to Stornoway.
Walk for 2½km/1½ miles along the road to Na Gearrannan (NB194442).
(A) Na Gearrannan is a collection of restored blackhouses - sturdy stone dwellings topped with thatch and turf where occupants would share floor space with cattle. Although they date back several centuries, blackhouses are a gateway to an immediate past: the last ones were occupied up to 1974. Electricity came in 1952 and until 1960, when mains tap water arrived, laundry was washed in nearby lochs.
[2] Public access runs through the hamlet and you bear right uphill by the information point at the bottom of the lane, following the waymarkers to Aird Mhor (NB192451).
On a clear day you’ll get one of the finest coastal views in the British Isles. A mountainous wall to the south marks the border with Harris, while to the south-east the hills of Uig (pronounced ‘oog’) spring abruptly from the Atlantic, almost encircling Loch Roag. Out to sea you’ll spot the Flannan Islands, scene of the bizarre, unresolved disappearance of three lighthouse keepers in 1900. After a violent December storm, coastguards arrived to find the table set for dinner, an upturned chair but no trace of the keepers.
[3] From Aird Mhor the path drops to Fivig Burn and then climbs to the next headland, Aird Mheadhonach (NB199455).
You’ll often come across exposed boulders of Lewisian gneiss - at 3 billion years old they’re some of the earliest known rocks on the planet. Scattered around, though tricky to find, are the more recent remains of three whisky stills uncovered by archaeologists. A superb developing sea stack, known as Stac a Chaisteil, remains tethered – just - to the cliffs here, and you’ll see kittiwakes and fulmars flitting to and fro. With binoculars you should pick out a cairn and remains of an Iron Age fort on the stack.
[4] Just beyond the sea stack is Aird Ghobhann (NB205456), the last major headland on this route. From here, a grassy bluff zig-zags through turf terraces down to a fence (NB208451). Cross it and then follow more waymarkers beneath the hill of Beinn Bheag to the beautiful beach of Dhail Mor (NB215452).
(B) At the top of the bay is a lonely sand-blown cemetery, featuring many grand tombstones.
[5] From Dhail Mor the path heads north-east between a fence and a stone wall, beneath the hill of Creag an Taghain, and across another fence by a stile (NB219452). You then keep ahead beneath the hill of Cleit Dalbeg, cross a small stream and then turn right, with a fence on your left. After 150m, turn left over the fence to reach a minor road. Turn left again to reach Dhail Beag (NB227459) - a true gem of a beach.
(C) On the way you pass Loch Dhailbeag, in a mournfully quiet pond-like setting, fringed with seaweed, where sand blown from the beaches adds a shimmer to the dark, peaty waters. In summer white lilies cover the water.
[6] The walk finishes at Dhail Beag beach.