The rain had gone by morning, so off we went to the south-west peninsula, call the Oa (pronounced “oh”). We locked our bikes and walked around the coast to the American Monument, which marks the loss of two ships sunk off the coast in 1918.
In the afternoon we took the A road past the airport to Bowmore, where a very helpful bike shop man tightened Rowan’s cycle headset for no charge. Bowmore is the largest settlement but there is little of interest apart from a circular church and the distillery which bears the name of the village. We passed four German hikers on the road and saw them again in the Tourist Information Centre where they were having difficulty finding accommodation for the night. We returned by the B road which runs parallel to the main road for most of its length, past excavated peat workings.