Berneray’s West Beach runs for about three miles along the island’s Atlantic side, backed by machair, the shell-sand grassland typical of Hebridean coasts, thick with wildflowers in early summer. A causeway to North Uist opened in 1999, and from the island’s north end a CalMac ferry crosses the Sound of Harris to Leverburgh, on Harris, a roundabout hour-long route through the skerries, the small rocky islets that stud the sound.
In 1987 the future King Charles spent four days on Berneray living as a crofter, staying with the MacKillop family at Burnside Croft, planting potatoes, cutting peat and helping to dip sheep. The visit was kept secret at the time; he returned in 1991 to make a television documentary about the island. Most of Berneray’s 140 or so people live in crofting townships strung along its single road, with North Uist across the causeway to the south.
