Isle of Wight weekend

Some pics here from our spring time long weekend in the Isle of Wight. It was worth a visit, but we felt like we could have had the same experience elsewhere on the English coast, without having to travel the extra distance to our accommodation in Shanklin on the south east coast of the Isle.

 At Fisherman's Cottage - an old school cottage right on the beach only open part of the year due to the tide. Great food, patchy service.

Lots of walking along wind-swept beaches, exploring the old village of Shanklin (full of thatch-roofed buildings like the cover of a chocolate box), and resting, so it was just what we wanted. The highlight was a day spent at the Needles, a row of three stacks of chalk that rise out of the sea. They’re named after a fourth needle-shaped pillar that collapsed in a storm in 1764, but the name has stuck. Alum bay is also host to colourful cliffs of sand coloured by minerals. The colours run vertically, but actually originally were horizontal lines showing the various ages of the earth, and it’s quite freaky to think at some stage the land was turned 90 degrees. At the park there’s a fairly tacky ‘theme village’ at the top, with rides for kids and an old-fashioned sweet shop, but we bypassed that and walked down to the boat queue and took a quick trip close to the needles themselves, then spent a good few hours trekking up the coastal path to a monument to Alfred Lord Tennyson who lived nearby, and stopping at the site of a top secret space rocked and missile development centre open between 1955 and 1971 – pretty run down with an amusing model of a rocket which looked like a child’s school project, but informative all the same. A really beautiful walk on a windy but sunny day.

 Dean with the Needles in the background

 Alum bay sands

As we were carless, we took a couple of buses each way to the Needles, which took a couple of hours but meant we could enjoy the view from the top deck as we wound our way through villages and farms.

The other highlight was the meal we had at Pendeltons in Shanklin old village: wonderful service, delicious food, and very well priced.

The walking track