We woke up on Day 8 after a pitch black night with zero signal where we had camped by the beach. However, if any of us felt creeped out by our isolated environment we didnt show it as we fell right asleep and slept through only to be awoken by seagulls walking on the roof of the van. We pottered around getting ready and saw all the beach campers groggily making their way back to their cars and using the convenient (and surprisingly clean) toilet facilities at the wild camping spot.

Today only had one main thing on the agenda and that was Handa Island. Handa Island is an island off the coast of Western Scotland and is a Scottish Wildlife Trust Nature reserve.

We were looking forward to potentially seeing some more wildlife and the views were meant to be stunning. Danielle had spotted the ferry across was cash only so we quickly stopped off at the local shop for some cash and Horny Devils (crackers) and we were off down the windiest narrow roads we had yet encountered. We all held our breath as we squeezed our way down to the harbour and met the kind gent who was ferrying us across to the island.

We were given sanitised life jackets, plonked on another RIB boat and jetted the 10 minutes across to the island.

We were given a map which outlined the walk around the island that would take us approximately three hours. There were numbered points along the walk which related to the map and explained various views or interesting points of note.

We landed on the beach and made our way up to the start of the trail head and we experienced an unexpected challenge of having to walk through a sand dune valley and what appeared to be a beehive. For anyone that knows me, knows how I feel about bees so I just put my head down, ignored the buzzing and scurried through as quickly as I could – without flailing my arms around.

The trail is mostly made up of wooden walkways to protect the wildlife and natural surroundings.

The first point you come to on the walk are the remnants of village settlements which hadnt been lived in since 1847. There is also the remains of a graveyard here as it is believed that anciently Handa Island was used as a burial ground because bodies were dug up by wolves on the mainland. Apart from this small spot though there was no evidence of humans ever being there. We were struck by how beautiful the landscape was with all the different colours.

The walk leads on up and up to the highest point of the island and the cliff faces. From here you can see Scottish mainland to the east and look into the seemingly endless North Atlantic to the west. There are no railings or anything protecting you from the cliff edges so we had to be careful of our footing.

We carried on along the cliffs and at some points felt like we were heading towards the edge of the world.

Depending on what time of year you come you can see all sorts of birds. In May – July puffins nest on the island but by the time we had got there they had all gone. We made our way round the island marvelling at the beautiful colour of the ocean until we got to a suitable place for lunch.

We sat ourselves on these rocks for some lunch, enjoying the sunshine and watching a seal bob his head in and out of the water whilst having a rest. Once we had finished our snacks we headed over to Boulder Bay.

Boulder Bay is a good place to stop and try and spot wildlife. If you sit here long enough you’ll see otters, seals, dolphins and if youre lucky whales. There was a seal bobbing in the water again, we had already seen dolphins and didnt think it was likely we would see a whale any time soon so we didnt hang around here for long. We carried on our way around the island back to the beach we arrived at. Along the way we saw some native birds, rabbits and black newts as well as the seals.

Shortly after we hurried through the beehive and arrived back on the beach we were picked up and brought back to the mainland.

Being collected from that white sandy beach on a small boat made us feel as if we were being rescued from a deserted island. The trip back across was significantly bumpier than the trip over and I got splashed quite alot. Not as much as the elderly couple behind me though!

Once we had squeezed our way out of the harbour we were on our way to our campsite for the night which was in the picturesque harbour town to Ullapool.

We were staying at Broomfield Holiday Park which right next to a beach. We parked up and went straight into town to have a look around.

As we were wandering through the town Danielle spotted a place called the Seafood Shack was still open. We had read amazing things about it and the place had won awards. So despite having food back at the campsite we joined the queue and decided what to have!

We decided to go for the tempura haddock wrap and potted lobster. It was DELICIOUS.

We rejoined the queue again, this time to try some pan fried hake but just as we were getting to the front one of the staff members came out and crossed it off the board! We were gutted but walked back to the van saying it was probably for the best as we were already quite full.

Once back at the camper, I decided to take a shower but Liam told me my towel had unfortunately fallen in the toilet (Im wondering if this was payback for dropping the cap in the waste pipe) but we spotted there was a Tesco Superstore ten minutes up the road so Danielle and I headed out again. We trecked up to the Tesco swatting away the constant swarm of midges only to discover that the Scottish Highlands version of a superstore is no bigger than a regular Tesco Express and they didnt sell towels. So I grabbed a pack of tea towels and accepted this was going to be my towel for the rest of the trip.

By the time we got back to the campsite there was a beautiful sunset happening on the nearby beach so we headed over and sat down on the rocks to enjoy it before I had my interesting tea towel shower and flopped into bed.