Uig Sands Beach — Mary Kate Navigates

Sep 7

Sep 7 Uig Sands Beach

After the Callanish Standing Stones, we were heading to Uig Sands Beach to camp for the night.

Uig Sands Beach is a gorgeous Scottish beach on the southwestern side of the Isle of Lewis. It is known for the Uig Chessmen. In 1831, a set of 93 pieces from a Viking chess set were discovered in a stone chamber on this beach. The chess pieces were made of walrus ivory and whales' teeth and they are thought to have been made in Norway in the 12th century. The original chess pieces are on display in the National Museum of Scotland in Edinburgh and the British Museum in London. But there is a giant - larger than life - replica of the King piece on display on the beach.

There is a very casual campground onsite. There was a sign that said that camping was £5 and you could pay the man at the house at the end of the street. Like I said, very casual. Technically, since this is Scotland, you could legally pitch your tent anywhere and be fine. But the £5 provided bathrooms - nothing fancy, but they were very clean! I'm totally good with paying £5 for some clean bathrooms for the night!

We paid our £5 to the guy at the end of the street so we could camp here for the night. Then we took some time to explore the beach. It was a gorgeous afternoon and we had the entire beach to ourselves. It was a wonderful end to a perfect day!

We found a good spot to pitch the tent for the night. It was protected from some of the crazy winds coming off the Atlantic. After camp was set up, we made some dinner and spent the rest of the evening relaxing with a couple of beers and continued our rather competitive game of Yahtzee. Yahtzee will forever remind us of those nights we spent camping together in the Scottish wilderness. The next morning we woke up with some friendly visitors checking out our tent.