(Almost) around the Isle of Wight part 1

[nigheandonn]

I came to the Isle of Wight with the intention of circumnavigating it twice - I couldn't help feeling that it was unnatural for me to be so far south twice in one year (or even once in a year), but the combination of an online friend's reports from the coastal path, which she walks on quite regularly, and a second chance to Steam Round The Island on the Waverley (a plan which has been foiled once already) proved suddenly irresistible.

The Waverley failed me first - reported strong winds kept her inside the Solent, vaguely reminiscent of trips up and down the Sound of Mull in the old days, but with less exciting scenery. Getting on at Yarmouth wouldn't have been so bad, but by the time you'd got there from Portsmouth to go most of the way back again and then return it was getting a bit monotonous - Southampton Water and Portsmouth harbour were really the best parts of the trip.

I avoided a fourth trip by getting off at Yarmouth to catch a bus to Newport - my cunning plan was to stay in the middle so that I could just catch a bus out and back every day, and Newport is the centre of the transport links as well as the centre of the island. I knew I was taking on quite a challenge - something like 65 miles over 3 days - so the less I had to carry with me the better.

The other cunning plan was to start walking at Cowes so that I could finish off by walking straight onto the ferry - I didn't arrive quite as early as I meant to, due to suddenly worrying about breakfast and waiting for an 8am shop to open, but it turned out that even before 9am on a Sunday there were plenty of cafes open in Cowes, so I could have waited - yachters must get up early.

I was counting the Medina as my official starting point, and crossed over on the floating bridge - which is just a fancy name for a chain ferry - to get going on the other side.

Cowes

The Medina can't quite make up its mind whether to be a river or to be the sea, but it's clearly at least the remains of a working port.

Cowes Hammerhead crane

For a coastal path there is not a lot of coast to be seen on the first part of the path, which seems to be mostly Queen Victoria's fault - all the first part of the coast is the Osbourne estate, and the route of the coastal path runs inside it, up quite an ordinary suburban road to pass the Osbourne entrances and head out into something a bit more like countryside, although still on the main road.

Osbourne House entrance

Signs for a historic church and a famous pub distracted me from my path, and I had to backtrack a bit to turn off through what seemed to be a village without a name, a long row of houses which became a country road between hedges.

The path kept to the road for another mile or so, as it came into the edge of a little town, and then suddenly dived from a road mysteriously called 'Footways' into a series of lanes presumably older than the houses they ran between.

Suburban paths

Beyond the lanes it looked a bit like I had finally reached the coast, but Wootton Creek was really no more the sea than the Medina was - just another bit of tidal river.

Wootton Creek

More back roads brought me past the Fishbourne ferry terminal and a very decorative looking pub, and then a track led on towards the very striking sight of Quarr Abbey - I don't know what its style is based on, but it's nothing that belongs around here.

Quarr Abbey

I don't really know what abbeys do, apart from pray - this one also seemed to keep lots of pigs in enclosures. But it was after 11 and I was more than 5 miles in, and since it was Sunday I'd promised myself a proper break for elevenses, and lots of people walking about in a purposeful but holiday sort of way suggested that a tearoom might be nearby, and so it was - I ate a scone, and a black labrador left alone at the next table entangled itself as thoroughly as possible in the table and chair legs for my entertainment.

Next door is the remains of the old abbey, obviously a very different kind of building. I thought I'd taken a detour to visit it, having followed abbey signs rather than coastal path signs, so was pleased to find I was right on the route.

Old Quarr Abbey

More track led on to a little church at a corner, and then uphill across a golf course, to reach the houses of Ryde quite high up and begin to descend again.

Although things were starting to improve and I could at least see the sea, this sign on the outskirts of Ryde really did seem to sum up the walk so far!

Summing up the walk

A few minutes later I was finally down by the seafront, looking out at the long pier with its trains.

Ryde seafront

From here you're looking over to Portsmouth on the mainland, with a row of tall buildings, and I was amused by a roadsign pointing to Portsmouth (via hovercraft).

I didn't have time for lingering, and headed on, past a pondful of swan-shaped boats waiting for their elves to where the promenade leaves the road and becomes a path round the edge of a park, passing a little folly tower and a monument to HMS Sirius of the First Fleet to Australia.

Appley tower

This is the closest point to Portsmouth, and the buildings along the coast, particularly the pointy Spinnaker Tower, are well in view.

Portsmouth

Further on the path seemed to be walking round the outside of the world, with a wall cutting off everything inland.

Emptiness

Beyond the point a seaside path leads on hopefully, with a beach clearly in view ahead, but it fizzled out in a place where the water was too high to let me past, and I had to retrace my steps and turn inland for a bit.

Where the path turned back to the shore and the view turned away from the mainland a lot of colourful little boats were moored.

Colourful boats

At the end of the little beach the path turns more definitely inland, doing the first real field crossings of the route - I more or less fell into a field that was a bit further below the level of the gate in than I had realised.

The coast is reached again at the remains of St Helen's church, rebuilt by the Normans on a Saxon site and slowly eaten by the sea over the centuries - in the early 18th century the remaining part of the tower was bricked up on the seaward side and painted white to serve as a seamark for the navy.

St Helen's church

A sign here notes that Victory was anchored offshore here when Nelson came aboard for the last time - I've heard of St Helen's roads, and yet never really taken in that from the point of view of a ship there's no real difference between the mainland and a nearby island.

I meant to stop for lunch somewhere here, but although there was a beach cafe it was sit down meals only, and I just wanted to grab something and keep going. So I headed on, across a spit of land oddly called a duver, with National Trust deckchairs and a very artistic looking dead tree.

Artistic tree

The little causeway path across Bembridge harbour was one of the parts I was looking forward to most, and I was lucky, because a sign at the start told me it was closing the next day for three weeks. It was great fun, and very nice views, marsh on one side and the harbour with old walls in the water and boats moored at the far side on the other.

Causeway

The rest of the harbour was a fairly long dull trek, past a long series of things that were no more boats than chalets on blocks in a field are caravans - if I was going to live in a boat, I would want it to go somewhere!

Houseboats

One of them claimed to be a cafe but turned out to be an even posher restaurant type place, so I was on the edge of the houses before I came across a beach sort of place which sold sandwiches and cake in between postcards and buckets.

Beyond a pub which wanted to be a boat, the next part of the path couldn't seem to make up its mind - the map said one thing and the signs said another, and the map's version looked more interesting, as well as impervious to people just swinging the signs round.

But down on the shore I could see why they might have wanted to do it - with the tide out there was plenty of room to get through, but the shore left above high water mark was steep and overgrown.

I was baffled by dead trees in the beach which had presumably once been further inland, because the land doesn't wear away on the west coast - it took quite a lot of time and thought to figure out that I was in the east.

Dead trees in the shore

A long pier here is actually the lifeboat house, and a lot of rattling presaged the excitement of the lifeboat appearing, sliding wheeeee down its chute, and zooming off into the distance.

Lifeboat

Not far beyond I turned the corner onto the long south coast - a definite landmark in my walk, as I was very aware of having a long way to go. There were glimpse of cliffs ahead, before I was swallowed up by a narrow path - a definite change from the beaches and villages of the east.

Cliffs ahead

The path climbed up high above the shore and stayed there for a while before climbing again to the monument on Culver Down -- built for someone who would have liked to be a naval hero but wasn't, I think, but at least there is a reason for it being so imposing, as it was deliberately built as a sea mark.

Culver Down monument

Culver Down really is quite odd, a narrow band of chalk cliffs squeezed in among completely different landscapes - beyond it the land falls again to the long beach at Sandown.

Descending towards Sandown

Civilisation meant a rest, although I didn't have much time for one - it was about 20 to 6, with decent light until around 8, and I really had to get through to Bonchurch or Ventnor, or somewhere close, if I wanted to make it to Totland the next day.

Sandown beach

Sandown is proper holiday seaside, with a pier and a zoo and a dinosaur museum, in among other attractions - I seemed to have been in a lot of different kinds of places over the day.

The official route of the coastal path takes to the cliffs, but apparently involves a lot of unnecessary up and down, so instead I kept to the shore - a long smooth path called a revetement, which is a word I'd never come across before and kept vaguely mixing up with revenants, which would not be nice to walk on.

Revetement to Shanklin

Shanklin had a kind of park of small dinosaurs, and a clock tower, and an imposing cliff lift, and then confusingly the road went off uphill and the coastal path didn't, carrying on past the base of a chine to climb quite suddenly up a long flight of steps - I was quite proud of managing to get to the top without stopping!

This was the end of the road, and decision time - it wasn't sunset, but the light was looking pretty dingy, and I was worried about going on over paths, especially in among trees. Half an hour later I regretted my decision, because the light had got no dingier, although the sky was turning pink and orange and pale turquoise, but at the time I just turned up to the main road, where I was lucky enough to catch a bus almost at once.