Around the island in 47 hours
Jun. 3rd, 2016 06:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ladyofastolatI started my coastal path walk at 16.10 last Saturday, having managed to leave work a little early. I finished on Monday at 15.06 and 30 seconds. Yes, the 30 seconds is important, since I'd spent the last two miles walking as fast as I could, desperately clock-watching as I aimed the 15.08 bus.
Mostly in note form, because... well, because.
Saturday
Bus from Newport to Shalfleet. Walked from Shalfleet to Cowes, then across the floating bridge and as far as Quarr, a couple of miles short of Ryde. c. 14 miles. c. 4 hours (excluding time waiting for floating bridge).
Busy bus, full of tourists heading out towards Alum Bay and the Needles. A group of queue jumper got loudly berated by a chap who not only shouted at them in the queue, but sat down next to them on the bus to continue to berate them. It was a fairly full bus, but there were still plenty of spare seats. Musing: what behaviour is more un-English: queue jumping, or shouting at a queue jumper?
Forgot camera, since I was heading out straight after work. Boring bit of coastal path, though - lots of road walking, thanks to the Newtown estuary and the army.
Some sort of music event happening at Clamerkin (which I always think is a good name for a cat). A peacock sign marked the turning, but I don't know what the event was. A secret festival? Hard to be secret when your music can be heard for from a mile away, though.
Temporary traffic lights on the way out of Porchfield. Motion sensor detected my coming, and gave me a green light all of my very own. How nice!
Over-taken three times by the same couple who, not content with walking the coastal path, were running it. No idea how they managed to overtake me three times, since I never noticed overtaking them even once.
Very high tide, so had to take theannoying inland diversion official coastal path route through a housing estate, rather than shortcut across the beach at Gurnard. Grr!
Only wished for camera once: when a GINORMOUS cruise ship - "the biggest ship in the world!" I heard someone say - appeared to be about to ram Cowes. Since it was clearly at least four times the size of the town, I suspect it would have come out best in the encounter. Musing on the baffling appeal of cruise ships. As usual, hundreds of people out on the Cowes seafront with long lenses, watching the cruise ships go out. Why? The Possibly Biggest Cruise Ship In The World was having a very loud party, and the compere sounded VERY excited about the whole thing.
Long wait for gloating bridge. (*laughs* Floating bridge, I mean. I do like typos!) Felt blister on the ball of my foot coming on as I walked through East Cowes, thanks to an unwise sock. Considered walking to Ryde, but decided to stop at Wootton instead (4 miles short), partly because of blister and partly because of time. Paused for a minute to pull bus timetable out of rucksack and consult it, which delayed me JUST long enough to miss a bus by seconds when I reached the main road. Decided to carry on towards Ryde (the coastal path follows the road for a while) and catch next bus, but the remembered bus stop was on the wrong side of the road. Finally got 20.34 bus at Quarr. A very bus-rich part of the coastal path, this.
Home at 9-ish.
Sunday
VERY hot and sunny. 7.40 bus from Newport to Quarr. Walked 08.00 to 16.20 finishing at Chale, where I caught the Last Bus back from the Land That Buses (Almost) Forgot at 17.08. Miles: c. 27
The blister was a lot better. I wore two pairs of thick walking socks on the affected foot, and hoped for the best.
Quarr Abbey had spotty sheep! They also have spotty pigs!, sometimes with spotty piglits!, but with 27 miles ahead of me, I decided not to detour to try to find them. Spotty sheep aren't an adequate substitute for piglits!, but will do. I don't remember noticing the mysterious Shadow Sheep who has popped up in the bottom left, like Banquo at the feast.
The new abbey was shadowed by trees, but the ruined old abbey - often in shade when I pass by later in the day - was in full sunshine.
Then to Ryde, where the elves' swan boats were ready to take the elves to wherever elves go. Probably Pompey.
Appley Tower, a folly, now a rock shop and place of crystal healing.
After 4 miles of barely hurting at all, the blister suddenly gave a stab of pain. I took my boot off, prodded it randomly... and after that, it only hurt a little bit, and by the end of the day, it hurt not at all, and had entirely gone by evening. Odd.
Anyway... Along the seafront through Seaview, inland a bit, then down to the St Helen's Sea Mark (a bissected church tower), to glower across the narrow stretch of water that separates it from the other side of Bembridge Harbour. A good 2 or 3 miles of walking to get a few hundred yards. Grr! Then across the causeway and past all the houseboats, trying to work out how on EARTH some of them manage to fit the 6 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms that their "For Sale" notices advertise. Ancient nautical knowledge, presumably.
Finally on the far side of the harbour, looking back.
Very low tide, so could walk along the beach, rather than take the inland route past the ginormous houses. The sand worms had been busy.
An abandoned bucket. Why did I photograph it? Why not?
Bembridge Lifeboat Station from underneath.
After the Crab and Lobster, I was on virgin territory! Yes, a bit of coastal path that's been closed for some years has reopened again, so I could walk on a clifftop path, rather than take another annoying inland diversion through a housing estate. Yay!
Looking back at Bembridge at very low tide, from somewhere near Culver.
Musing on the difference between walking in the winter and the summer. All the many caravan parks and campsites of the coastal path are teeming with people, whereas I'm used to seeing them all empty. Don't like the heat of summer walking. But on the bright side, all the tea shops and ice cream places are open in the summer. And paths are less squelchy and easier to find, clearly walked flat through fields of long grass. Good to have loads of hours of daylight, too.
And then, cresting Culver, looking ahead at the hazy bay that holds Sandown and Shanklin.
Had to buy ridiculously overpriced sun cream in Sandown. I'd put cream on my neck and upper arms, but I had the sun in my face all the way, so needed some for my face, too. Yuck! I hate creams on my face, but it's better than turning into a lobster.
The coastal path between Sandown and Shanklin is officially designed by a sadist. I normally walk along the revetement - a broad, popular route that exactly follows the coast. However, I was surprised to see that the official path actually goes through the gardens at the top of the cliff, so I did this... only to be faced with many ups and downs and ups and downs and ups and downs, all of them a little LESS "coastal" than the revetement down at sea level. Having bypassed all the tea shops and ice cream shops of Shanklin, this annoying clifftop path suddenly reaches Shanklin Chine, goes, "oops!" and makes you descend to sea level again, before taking back up again on the far side. THIS Up is unavoidable, but why make us do all the previous ones?
Anyway... A slow, hot, hot, HOT trudge up from Shanklin to Luccombe, then through the Landslip (shade!) down to Bonchurch. Not sure why this is called The Landslip, when we have loads and loads of the things, but it is. Victorian tourism, probably.
Bonchurch Church is probably my favourite island church, but no time to explore it.
Then along the sea wall to Ventnor, through Ventnor, Steephill Cove and the Botanic Gardens. Walking along narrow, overgrown little paths along the Undercliff, then inland to climb UP the Undercliff. (Which doesn't make sense, really. Oh well.) VERY hot now, and a bit trudgy, but it was plain that although the 15.08 bus from Chale was not a possibility, the 17.08 would be easily reached. So after Niton, I stopped for an ice cream (ginger, but sadly without lumps) at the car park above Blackgang, then descended into Chale.
St Catherine's Lighthouse on the Undercliff.
The bus was late.
Monday
More overcast today, and more breezy. Much nicer to walk in. For bus reasons, had to walk the opposite direction today. Drove to Shalfleet, starting walking at 7.10. Finished at Chale at 15.06 and 30 seconds. Miles: c. 27
Other foot had developed a blister, too, so I wore two pairs of socks on this foot, too. Once again, sudden stab of pain after an hour, followed by no pain at all, and no blister in evidence by the end of the day. Which was nice.
Newtown Estuary is VERY annoying. First 2 or 3 miles spent mostly going in the wrong direction, negotiating all the various inlets. A lovely moment when finally reach the coast and start walking in the right direction!
No photos between here and Yarmouth, for some reason. Not the most exciting part of the path, though.
Got bounced by a black labradoid near Yarmouth. I'm sure its owner shouted, "Down, Stannis!" but maybe not.
The woods behind Fort Victoria. This chap ALWAYS makes me jump.
I walked - and fairly thoroughly photographed - the next 10 miles or so on May 1st, albeit in the other direction, so didn't take any pictures today, except for the token Needles snap. The Needles Pleasure Park was packed, with long queues of cars waiting to get in.
Fairly quickly across the familiar terrain of Tennyson Down, and down into Freshwater Bay. Then, once over the next batch of cliffs, I noticed that the tide was low and there were people on the beach, so decided to go down the many, many steps onto the beach, to walk at least a mile or two on the nice, flat, damp sand.
And there I stayed. Past Brook, where I'd planned to rejoin the clifftop path. Could I reach Grange Chine, some 2 or 3 miles away? Would I be cut off by the tide and drownded? Others were walking the same way, but were they wise or fools? The map suggested continuous beach, so I decided to risk it. I'd put the camera away miles back, but the red rocks prompted me to bring it out again.
A giant had left his boots on the shore.
After Grange Chine, I was less sure about the wisdom of carrying on. Were there any more places to leave the beach and get back up onto the cliffs? Whale Chine is definitely closed. I remember seeing a notice at Shepherd's Chine, warning about... something. Was it "beach access closed!" or "if you access beach, be aware that you can't get back up at Whale Chine"? I thought perhaps the latter. A rucksack-wearing man ahead of me was carrying on, so presumably he knew what he was doing. I followed him. After a mile, he stopped for a drink, and when I caught up, I asked him about ways off the beach. "I think there might be one at Atherfield," he said, "used by the fishermen, but it's a bit like that leap of faith in Indiana Jones. I'm turning round now and heading back."
But there was at least one more line of boots in the sand ahead of me, and a different boot mark coming the other way, so I decided that the Boots Knew Best and carried on.
Boots in the sand:
Then the sand went away, and for about a mile, I had to walk on pebbles at the VERY edge of the sea, at the bottom of a steep bank of shingle, as gentle waves occasionally broke over my feet. Kind of worried for a while there... but then the sand was back, and I beheld people ahead of me - people who were sitting down on towels, not waving in terror! Yes, I COULD get back onto the cliffs at Shepherd's Chine, and, yes, the notice DID merely warn about the closure of Whale Chine. Yay!
So that left me with about 30 minutes to do about 2 miles, so I raced and rushed and hurried and raced, and got to the bus stop JUST before the bus was due.
Here is Chale Church, just to mark the end of the journey. Stands the church clock at 6 past 3, and will the bus be here for me?
Needless to say, the bus was 20 minutes late. I had to stand on it, too. Grr! I got off in Carisbrooke, and 2 minutes later, was able to pick up the no. 7 bus heading out towards the Needles, to get off at Shalfleet and pick up my car. Apparently I'd left it unlocked all day, but the dog walkers of Shalfleet are obviously honest - or unobservant - chaps, and nobody had stolen it.
Mostly in note form, because... well, because.
Saturday
Bus from Newport to Shalfleet. Walked from Shalfleet to Cowes, then across the floating bridge and as far as Quarr, a couple of miles short of Ryde. c. 14 miles. c. 4 hours (excluding time waiting for floating bridge).
Busy bus, full of tourists heading out towards Alum Bay and the Needles. A group of queue jumper got loudly berated by a chap who not only shouted at them in the queue, but sat down next to them on the bus to continue to berate them. It was a fairly full bus, but there were still plenty of spare seats. Musing: what behaviour is more un-English: queue jumping, or shouting at a queue jumper?
Forgot camera, since I was heading out straight after work. Boring bit of coastal path, though - lots of road walking, thanks to the Newtown estuary and the army.
Some sort of music event happening at Clamerkin (which I always think is a good name for a cat). A peacock sign marked the turning, but I don't know what the event was. A secret festival? Hard to be secret when your music can be heard for from a mile away, though.
Temporary traffic lights on the way out of Porchfield. Motion sensor detected my coming, and gave me a green light all of my very own. How nice!
Over-taken three times by the same couple who, not content with walking the coastal path, were running it. No idea how they managed to overtake me three times, since I never noticed overtaking them even once.
Very high tide, so had to take the
Only wished for camera once: when a GINORMOUS cruise ship - "the biggest ship in the world!" I heard someone say - appeared to be about to ram Cowes. Since it was clearly at least four times the size of the town, I suspect it would have come out best in the encounter. Musing on the baffling appeal of cruise ships. As usual, hundreds of people out on the Cowes seafront with long lenses, watching the cruise ships go out. Why? The Possibly Biggest Cruise Ship In The World was having a very loud party, and the compere sounded VERY excited about the whole thing.
Long wait for gloating bridge. (*laughs* Floating bridge, I mean. I do like typos!) Felt blister on the ball of my foot coming on as I walked through East Cowes, thanks to an unwise sock. Considered walking to Ryde, but decided to stop at Wootton instead (4 miles short), partly because of blister and partly because of time. Paused for a minute to pull bus timetable out of rucksack and consult it, which delayed me JUST long enough to miss a bus by seconds when I reached the main road. Decided to carry on towards Ryde (the coastal path follows the road for a while) and catch next bus, but the remembered bus stop was on the wrong side of the road. Finally got 20.34 bus at Quarr. A very bus-rich part of the coastal path, this.
Home at 9-ish.
Sunday
VERY hot and sunny. 7.40 bus from Newport to Quarr. Walked 08.00 to 16.20 finishing at Chale, where I caught the Last Bus back from the Land That Buses (Almost) Forgot at 17.08. Miles: c. 27
The blister was a lot better. I wore two pairs of thick walking socks on the affected foot, and hoped for the best.
Quarr Abbey had spotty sheep! They also have spotty pigs!, sometimes with spotty piglits!, but with 27 miles ahead of me, I decided not to detour to try to find them. Spotty sheep aren't an adequate substitute for piglits!, but will do. I don't remember noticing the mysterious Shadow Sheep who has popped up in the bottom left, like Banquo at the feast.
The new abbey was shadowed by trees, but the ruined old abbey - often in shade when I pass by later in the day - was in full sunshine.
Then to Ryde, where the elves' swan boats were ready to take the elves to wherever elves go. Probably Pompey.
Appley Tower, a folly, now a rock shop and place of crystal healing.
After 4 miles of barely hurting at all, the blister suddenly gave a stab of pain. I took my boot off, prodded it randomly... and after that, it only hurt a little bit, and by the end of the day, it hurt not at all, and had entirely gone by evening. Odd.
Anyway... Along the seafront through Seaview, inland a bit, then down to the St Helen's Sea Mark (a bissected church tower), to glower across the narrow stretch of water that separates it from the other side of Bembridge Harbour. A good 2 or 3 miles of walking to get a few hundred yards. Grr! Then across the causeway and past all the houseboats, trying to work out how on EARTH some of them manage to fit the 6 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms that their "For Sale" notices advertise. Ancient nautical knowledge, presumably.
Finally on the far side of the harbour, looking back.
Very low tide, so could walk along the beach, rather than take the inland route past the ginormous houses. The sand worms had been busy.
An abandoned bucket. Why did I photograph it? Why not?
Bembridge Lifeboat Station from underneath.
After the Crab and Lobster, I was on virgin territory! Yes, a bit of coastal path that's been closed for some years has reopened again, so I could walk on a clifftop path, rather than take another annoying inland diversion through a housing estate. Yay!
Looking back at Bembridge at very low tide, from somewhere near Culver.
Musing on the difference between walking in the winter and the summer. All the many caravan parks and campsites of the coastal path are teeming with people, whereas I'm used to seeing them all empty. Don't like the heat of summer walking. But on the bright side, all the tea shops and ice cream places are open in the summer. And paths are less squelchy and easier to find, clearly walked flat through fields of long grass. Good to have loads of hours of daylight, too.
And then, cresting Culver, looking ahead at the hazy bay that holds Sandown and Shanklin.
Had to buy ridiculously overpriced sun cream in Sandown. I'd put cream on my neck and upper arms, but I had the sun in my face all the way, so needed some for my face, too. Yuck! I hate creams on my face, but it's better than turning into a lobster.
The coastal path between Sandown and Shanklin is officially designed by a sadist. I normally walk along the revetement - a broad, popular route that exactly follows the coast. However, I was surprised to see that the official path actually goes through the gardens at the top of the cliff, so I did this... only to be faced with many ups and downs and ups and downs and ups and downs, all of them a little LESS "coastal" than the revetement down at sea level. Having bypassed all the tea shops and ice cream shops of Shanklin, this annoying clifftop path suddenly reaches Shanklin Chine, goes, "oops!" and makes you descend to sea level again, before taking back up again on the far side. THIS Up is unavoidable, but why make us do all the previous ones?
Anyway... A slow, hot, hot, HOT trudge up from Shanklin to Luccombe, then through the Landslip (shade!) down to Bonchurch. Not sure why this is called The Landslip, when we have loads and loads of the things, but it is. Victorian tourism, probably.
Bonchurch Church is probably my favourite island church, but no time to explore it.
Then along the sea wall to Ventnor, through Ventnor, Steephill Cove and the Botanic Gardens. Walking along narrow, overgrown little paths along the Undercliff, then inland to climb UP the Undercliff. (Which doesn't make sense, really. Oh well.) VERY hot now, and a bit trudgy, but it was plain that although the 15.08 bus from Chale was not a possibility, the 17.08 would be easily reached. So after Niton, I stopped for an ice cream (ginger, but sadly without lumps) at the car park above Blackgang, then descended into Chale.
St Catherine's Lighthouse on the Undercliff.
The bus was late.
Monday
More overcast today, and more breezy. Much nicer to walk in. For bus reasons, had to walk the opposite direction today. Drove to Shalfleet, starting walking at 7.10. Finished at Chale at 15.06 and 30 seconds. Miles: c. 27
Other foot had developed a blister, too, so I wore two pairs of socks on this foot, too. Once again, sudden stab of pain after an hour, followed by no pain at all, and no blister in evidence by the end of the day. Which was nice.
Newtown Estuary is VERY annoying. First 2 or 3 miles spent mostly going in the wrong direction, negotiating all the various inlets. A lovely moment when finally reach the coast and start walking in the right direction!
No photos between here and Yarmouth, for some reason. Not the most exciting part of the path, though.
Got bounced by a black labradoid near Yarmouth. I'm sure its owner shouted, "Down, Stannis!" but maybe not.
The woods behind Fort Victoria. This chap ALWAYS makes me jump.
I walked - and fairly thoroughly photographed - the next 10 miles or so on May 1st, albeit in the other direction, so didn't take any pictures today, except for the token Needles snap. The Needles Pleasure Park was packed, with long queues of cars waiting to get in.
Fairly quickly across the familiar terrain of Tennyson Down, and down into Freshwater Bay. Then, once over the next batch of cliffs, I noticed that the tide was low and there were people on the beach, so decided to go down the many, many steps onto the beach, to walk at least a mile or two on the nice, flat, damp sand.
And there I stayed. Past Brook, where I'd planned to rejoin the clifftop path. Could I reach Grange Chine, some 2 or 3 miles away? Would I be cut off by the tide and drownded? Others were walking the same way, but were they wise or fools? The map suggested continuous beach, so I decided to risk it. I'd put the camera away miles back, but the red rocks prompted me to bring it out again.
A giant had left his boots on the shore.
After Grange Chine, I was less sure about the wisdom of carrying on. Were there any more places to leave the beach and get back up onto the cliffs? Whale Chine is definitely closed. I remember seeing a notice at Shepherd's Chine, warning about... something. Was it "beach access closed!" or "if you access beach, be aware that you can't get back up at Whale Chine"? I thought perhaps the latter. A rucksack-wearing man ahead of me was carrying on, so presumably he knew what he was doing. I followed him. After a mile, he stopped for a drink, and when I caught up, I asked him about ways off the beach. "I think there might be one at Atherfield," he said, "used by the fishermen, but it's a bit like that leap of faith in Indiana Jones. I'm turning round now and heading back."
But there was at least one more line of boots in the sand ahead of me, and a different boot mark coming the other way, so I decided that the Boots Knew Best and carried on.
Boots in the sand:
Then the sand went away, and for about a mile, I had to walk on pebbles at the VERY edge of the sea, at the bottom of a steep bank of shingle, as gentle waves occasionally broke over my feet. Kind of worried for a while there... but then the sand was back, and I beheld people ahead of me - people who were sitting down on towels, not waving in terror! Yes, I COULD get back onto the cliffs at Shepherd's Chine, and, yes, the notice DID merely warn about the closure of Whale Chine. Yay!
So that left me with about 30 minutes to do about 2 miles, so I raced and rushed and hurried and raced, and got to the bus stop JUST before the bus was due.
Here is Chale Church, just to mark the end of the journey. Stands the church clock at 6 past 3, and will the bus be here for me?
Needless to say, the bus was 20 minutes late. I had to stand on it, too. Grr! I got off in Carisbrooke, and 2 minutes later, was able to pick up the no. 7 bus heading out towards the Needles, to get off at Shalfleet and pick up my car. Apparently I'd left it unlocked all day, but the dog walkers of Shalfleet are obviously honest - or unobservant - chaps, and nobody had stolen it.
