The Chaos
This piece was placed as Runner-Up in the BBC Countryfile New Nature Writer of the Year 2022 competition. It is about walking in a storm at Howmore in the Outer Hebrides.
Howmore, South Uist
Celtic crosses stand on guard. Remains of four ancient chapels are scattered across these sacred grounds like the bones buried beneath. Beyond the austere white-washed church, the moorland glows in hues of eagles and deer. This is Howmore. During the twelfth century, this was the most religious and spiritual site on South Uist.
Preparing to brace the elements, I cling onto the car door as fierce Atlantic winds threaten to wrench it off its hinges. Ghostly whistles emanate from the direction of the graveyard, where lichen-splattered tombstones are Jackson Pollock paintings.
Taking the Hebridean Way, I march across the machair, marram grass whipping my legs. Snaking through sculpted sand dunes, I reach the sweeping beach, where a banquet is laid out for the wading birds. Curls of kelp are strewn over the shore: tagliatelle coils in caramel, coffee and chocolate.
The seaweed springs to life as tweed-dressed turnstones forage for morsels, while silver sanderlings scuttle to and fro in a mesmerising tidal dance. A fanfare of peeping oystercatchers greets me as they retreat from the incoming tide. Their piping calls are hushed to a whisper, drowned out by driving squalls.
Lonely ringed plover and rock pipits are dotted along the shore like tiny pebbles, as insignificant as I am on this twenty-mile coastline. Dodging the frothing surf, I spy grey seals periscoping out of the water, howling like lost souls at sea. Overhead, herring gulls snap their wings and sigh mournful cries as they scour the tideline for fresh carcasses.
Foaming white horses gallop on a storm-grey ocean, and thick white cloud envelops me. Hailstones pepper my skin, and for a moment, I have blizzard blindness. Patrolling ravens kronk a warning that the weather is about to worsen. The sky turns corvid black, signalling it is time to turn back.
The fury of the wailing wind screams in my face while the snarling sea spits and scowls. A thousand stallions pound their heavy hooves on my chest, kicking me back. They will not relent, but nor will I. Battling for breath, my heart races, and my pulse quickens. I am riding on the fringes of fear and fascination.
A shroud falls as the day fades, and I am cloaked in a grey haze. The gloaming is unearthly and unsettling. And I am infected with a creeping sense of foreboding. Shape-shifting silhouettes of two otters emerge from the waves, melting like mercury as they slink through the misty dusk back to their holt.
Reaching the mouth of the estuary, the melancholy calls of curlews are my cue to abandon the shore and return to the church. The gale is cyclonic now, swelling to a deafening crescendo as it funnels down the drover’s track. Trapped in the eye of the storm, it is as if I am on the brink. In a swirling vortex, the weather and my emotions are in sync. I am powerless and humbled by nature.
Opening the car door, an invisible hand snatches a bag like a tissue from a box of Kleenex. It sails over the telegraph wires, dissolving into the darkness. I slump onto the front seat, minus a few possessions, cocooned from the thrashing rain which buffets the car. Exhausted. Exhilarated. I have never felt more alive.
The Hebrides are islands on the edge. Between land and sea. Heaven and earth. At Howmore, with its wide skies and wild winds, is freedom. The untamed and undomesticated part of me lives here. Following in the footsteps of the pilgrims before me, in sun or storm, I find myself returning to this special place again and again.
New Nature Writer of the Year 2022: runner up 3 – BBC Countryfile Mag | Countryfile.com
