4 Best Sights in North Uist, The Northern Highlands and the Western Isles

Run by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the Balranald Nature Reserve shelters large numbers of waders and seabirds that inhabit the rock foreshore and marshland. Listen for corncrakes, whose distinctive rasping cry sounds not unlike a plastic drink lid being unscrewed.

Dating back around 5,000 years, Barpa Langass is a chambered cairn (a Neolithic burial monument), the only one in the Western Isles to retain a fully intact inner chamber. You can peek inside, but don't venture too far without a light. You'll find Barpa Langass just off the A867, two-thirds of the way between Lochmaddy and Clachan.

Near Port nan Long in the very north of North Uist stands the remains of Dun an Sticir, reputed to have been the last inhabited broch on the island. This defensive tower, reached by a causeway over the loch, was built in the Iron Age but abandoned when the Vikings arrived in the 9th century. In 1602, it was reoccupied by Hugh Macdonald, a descendant of Macdonald of Sleat, but since he reached an unpleasant end (starved to death in a castle dungeon on the Isle of Skye), it has been slowly crumbling into the sea.

Set right on the shore in Lochmaddy, the well-run Taigh Chearsabhagh is an informative museum and arts center, complete with two exhibition spaces, a working printshop, and a permanent exhibition that reveals what life is really like on North Uist. The café serves a selection of cakes and soup, as well as excellent French-press coffee.