Barra

Now, if you've listened to episode one of this adventure, then you'll know that I've combined a family holiday with a visit to the Outer Hebrides.

Pam, Minnie and I, as well as our good friends Irina and Philip and their two gorgeous boys, Nicholas and Lucas, who are also my godsons, set off from Glasgow to catch a ferry from Oban to Barra.

Things did not go exactly to plan and we ended up in Uig for the night on the Isle of Skye.

Well, it's been an extraordinary adventure so far and even at the end of our first day we were running ahead of Storm Dave with gusts of winds of up to 90 miles an hour.

What we did not expect was snow and a lot of it, but more of that later.

This podcast, episode two of our Outer Hebrides trip, will cover our day on Skye before we catch our ferry to Barra on the Outer Hebrides.

We nearly didn't make it.

And to see some wonderful photos of this day's activities, go to my website www.exclusivescottishvisits.co.uk on the podcast page and have a look at some of those.

We're like, "Well, what...

No, what if we just did that trip? What if we went to Corrie and Shiskine and Barra and all these kind of w- weird far-flung places" And it just turned into this great combo that I'm, I'm so happy we did.

And, uh, yeah, wouldn't have, wouldn't have changed a thing.

Which is a callback to, to, to the first se- or to the second season of Tourist Sauce as well, where we're like, we went to Musselburgh Old Links and-

That was kind of among, you know, there's a bunch of these on this trip, but, uh, one of the places where I was like, "Man, I could, I could drop anchor there for a couple of days and just sit and look at the water and eat great seafood and, and kind of mill about," uh, which we did for a couple of hours before we hopped on the mega ferry from Oban out to Castlebay, I believe, uh, on the island-

Yes

... of Barra, uh, which is out in the Outer Hebrides.

If you're picturing mainland Scotland, you can picture kind of up at that, you know, again, clock face kind of 9:00, kind of due west, uh, out there.

And I think they are so different, aren't they? My aim actually is to go to...

The Isle of Barra, I think, has not a park run, I believe.

And it's just a group of people that run it on a Saturday morning.

And I would love to go and do some.

Because, again, I think it's near the airfield, more or less, where the plane

lands.

Isn't Barra the one where it lands on the beach

or something? That's right.

Mark has built a successful business career and property and retailing.

Raymond Buchanan grew up as a Celtic supporter on the Isle of Barra.

When he came to Glasgow as a student, his first job was as a waiter in the Walford restaurant in Celtic Park.

Since then, he has developed successful careers as a broadcaster and subsequently in communications and corporate relations at senior levels in FTSE 100 companies.

Let me, let me read to you a reader's letter that we had in our, in our mail bag.

[laughs] It's, uh, from Helen McKinnon on the Isle of Barra out in the Hebrides.

Have you been to Barra?

I've not.

I've not been to any of the Hebrides.

I've, I've been to the Isle of Coll.

Hmm.

And I, I haven't been to the Isle of Barra, but my experience on the Isle of Coll tells me that what she describes about the Isle of Barra is completely plausible.