We took our campervan up to the Hebrides (Western Isles) in June 2009. There aren’t many campsites so we ended up freecamping. This is where you park up at a spot and stay the night free of charge.
Luckily freecamping is generally well accepted on all of the islands in the Hebrides, and we thought that we’d write a brief guide to all of the places we freecamped.
Barra is where we started our trip, taking the ferry from Oban to Castlebay, so that’s where the guide starts.
1. Vatersay Village Hall
This is mentioned in various places on the web and in the guide books. We thought it would be quiet, but it seemed that all the campers off the ferry headed for it! The village hall is located just north of the Vatersay village, on the road as you come from Castlebay to Vatersay – about 10 minutes’ drive. You can’t miss it – just as you see the beautiful white sands Vatersay east and west beaches, the village hall is on the right on a bend on the road.
The hall has a toilet (open 24hrs) and an outside tap. There’s also a picnic bench. There are enough spaces for about 4 campervans in the car park, two opposite, one just a little bit away from the hall, and we did see someone parked up further down the road but this seemed to be on the machair and didn’t look like a proper space.
2. Eoligarry jetty
Information coming shortly.
3. Barra Airport (Cockleshell Bay)
Information coming shortly.
All these places are marked on our map of freecamping on Barra on Google maps.
Here’s some of Becs and Paul’s most recent photos:
I made this recipe up after seeing “halloumi kibi” on The Gate’s menu. I googled some tikka recipes to find one that sounded right and worked out the rest.
It’s delicious – enjoy!
Ingredients
For the kebabs
- Two large courgettes
- One red onion
- 250g pack of halloumi
For the marinade
- 1 1/2 tsp mustard seeds
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 1 tsp coriander seeds
- 1/2 tsp chilli flakes
- 2 cloves garlic, peeled
- a thumb-sized piece of fresh ginger, roughly chopped
- a pinch sea salt
- 1 tbsp garam masala
- 1/2 tsp ground tumeric
- 100ml natural yoghurt
First, make the marinade. Whizz up all the ingredients together; I used a HC Chopper attachment for the Braun handblenders. Then slice the halloumi whichever way you like so it ends up in appx 2cm by 2cm pieces about 0.5cm thick. Dab the marinade over the halloumi with a pastry brush.
Slice the courgettes into rounds about 1cm thick. Chop the red onion roughly so you end up with 2cm by 2cm or so pieces that are at least 3 layers thick. Brush a griddle pan with olive oil and griddle the courgettes and onion, in batches if necessary. When all are nicely charred, brush on the tikka marinade and cook for a further few minutes.
Cook the marinaded halloumi in a frying pan, flipping so both sides are nicely browned.
Assemble the kebabs on barbeque skewers and serve immediately. Great with salad, tabbouleh/couscous.
Serves: 2 as a main or 3-4 as a starter
By admin
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December 19, 2008
We’ve done a couple of batches of this, and are giving a few jars as Christmas presents. It’s gorgeous, especially with strongly flavoured cheeses such as Stilton, hard goats’ cheeses (such as the Ribblesdale “Superior Goats”, Northumberland Cheese Co.’s Elsdon or Brinkburn, cheddar.
The original recipe was from BBC Good Food. I’ve adapted it to include some cider 
Ingredients
- 1 large pineapple (around 1kg ish), peeled/cored and roughly chopped
- 1 red onion, peeled and finely chopped
- One or two large cooking apples (about 500g total), peeled/cored and chopped
- 140g of “ready to eat” figs, chopped
- 5cm of fresh ginger, grated
- 2 tsp of mustard seeds
- 1/2 tsp of grated nutmeg
- 1 tsp of salt
- 350ml cider vinegar
- 150ml dry cider (we used Strongbow but you might like a more traditional cider)
- 400g demerara sugar
- Put the pineapple chunks in a blender and pulse blend until a mixture of puree and small cubes.
- Place in a large pan with the apples, figs, onion, ginger, spices, salt, cider and cider vinegar.
- Bring to the boil and cook fairly fiercely, stirring, until the apple chunks break down.
- Add the sugar and stir in.
- Cook, stirring frequently, for another 30mins or so until the chutney is “gloopy”. Pour into sterilised jars (you’ll need about 5 x 450g jars), seal, cool and then chill in the fridge.
By Paul
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October 6, 2008
By Paul
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September 29, 2008
We had masses of green tomatoes this year. Becs made jam, and I made some green tomato chutney. Can’t remember where I got the recipe from but this tastes amazing!
Ingredients
2.25kg (ish) green tomatoes
500g onions
25g salt
250g raisins
250g sultanas
25g fresh ginger
4 red chillies
500g demerara sugar
500ml pickling vinegar
- Wash and finely chop the tomatoes, cutting out the hard bit where the stalk joins. Peel and finely chop the onions.
- Place the two together in a bowl, sprinkle with the salt and leave for at least an hour; ideally overnight.
- Bring vinegar and sugar to the boil.
- Roughly chop the raisins and sultanas.
- Add tomatoes and onion mix, with the raisins and sultanas. Put in the ginger (just as a big lump – I put it in straight from the freezer where I keep ginger) and the chillies (whole is fine – you will fish them out later).
- Bringback to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Simmer, stirring occasionally, for an hour or so with the lid off.
- Pour into hot sterilized jars and seal. Leave in the fridge for at least a few weeks for the taste to develop.
Great with cheese!
By Paul
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September 29, 2008
Here’s photos from our trip to Portugal to see Dan, Pilar, Alex and Marco in September this year.
This is another Lebanese-style dish that I’ve been making for a few years but not got around to posting. Even if you don’t like aubergines, you’ll like this as the cooking removes the chewy texture you tend to associate with aubergines.
I really like it cold the day after, as the flavours come out even more. Perfect with pitta, hummous, tabbouleh.
Ingredients:
- 2 large aubergines, firm skinned as you can get
- 2 garlic cloves, crushed or chopped
- 2in fresh root ginger, grated (I keep the ginger in the freezer; it’s easy to grate from frozen)
- 1 tbsp ground cumin
- Chilli powder or half a red chilli, chopped
- 6 tbsp clear honey
- Juice of a lemon
- 1/4 pint hot water
- Olive oil, salt
Peel and then slice the aubergines into 1cm (ish) slices. Salt and grill (in batches if necessary) until very brown on both sides. Don’t worry if they char a bit – it adds to the flavour.
In a big frying pan, flash fry the garlic for 30seconds in olive oil. Add the aubergines (again, in batches if necessary), cumin, ginger, water, honey, lemon juice and chilli (if required). Tip: mix the honey, water, lemon, ginger and cumin whilst the aubergines are cooking. Bring to the boil and then simmer for about 10mins. If you are doing batches, extract the first batch from the sauce to a serving dish, and then add the next batch. The sauce should end up being like a thin gravy in consistency – add more hot water if required.
This recipe was inspired by Claudia Roden’s Tamarind and Saffron cookbook (highly recommended).
I was so amazed by this BBC story about Seahorses in the Thames that I had to blog it.
Colonies of rare seahorses are living and breeding in the River Thames, conservationists have revealed.
Experts at London Zoo said the species had been found at Dagenham in east London and Tilbury and Southend in Essex, over the last 18 months.
