Trip up north to Point of Ayre

This trip was planned to allow me to test out my feet, both for driving and for walking. As it turns out I did more of the former than the latter, and I guess my left foot in particular will not be too keen on long walks right now. Driving was better, my main injury being my left ankle so not too much required on this foot except for gear changes. Even so, the 2 hrs in the car, and the 1.5 mile walk was quite enough for one day. As I have to drive in England before too long, I was testing the water.

It was a dull and cloudy day, promising to rain. Believe it or not, I have never walked around the Point of Ayre towards Cranstal & The Dog Mills down to Ramsey, only walking along the most ‘northerly’ part of the island previously towards the Visitor Centre. It isn’t really due north, as the island lies on an angle, but technically this is the most northerly point on the island. I took this photo off my tv having recorded a programme about Earth from Space, and it conveniently gave this interesting view showing the true location of the Isle of Man.

Starting at the large lighthouse, I walked around the headland, much to the consternation of the terns and oystercatchers who were nesting there. They kept track of me until I was out of their danger zone. Key areas on the beach are fenced of to prevent the public from inadvertently or advertently intruding onto nest sites. There were several stonechats too keeping watch from their vantage points on the gorse and shrubs inland, alerting their pals to my presence. The beach is mainly pebbles of assorted sizes and the solid land too is a mix of pebbles and sand dunes with a bit of soil and grass on the top in places. It is very unstable and is constantly being unearthed by the winds, rains and seas. The vegetation grows low around the periphery of the beach but when you move even a few metres inland, it has a chance to grow taller and dominate more. The flowers that grow abundantly around the seashore all around the island are miniscule here, holding on for dear life, but hold on they do, and in the 40 minutes I was out and about, I took 30 photographs of different species, a few of which I have put in the slideshow at the end for you.

Photo courtesy of lighthouseaccommodation.co.uk showing the foghorn and Winkie

The main lighthouse in the top photo was completed in 1818 , with 124 steps and a 105ft tower. Winkie, in the middle was completed in 1890 and designed to avoid high water tides being 33ft above sea level. I suspect the difference in height has grown now with the shingle build up in this area. I didn’t walk on the pebbles but tried to walk on the grassy tops, which have eroded away in many places. Indeed, even though not a deep drop from the ‘cliff’ to the beach, it would not pay to walk too close to the edge as there are many overhanging edges. Unfortunately, this scatty terrain meant I had to curtail my walk as the path that had been gradually climbing came to an abrupt and unexpected end at a ‘precipice’ with no means of continuing unless I retraced my steps and walked along the beach towards Ramsey which would have been a good few miles circular walk. I didn’t take a photo of this, but you get the idea from this one, taken a little earlier, slightly further north:

The coastal footpath is signposted to walk along the beach and when the tide is further out this would be possible; but not today, so I turned slightly inwards and back to the car. The area adjacent to this section of coastline is being reclaimed so there really are only two choices – walk along the beach or walk along the road around this area. A word of warning. It is important to check the tide times if you intend to do the beach from Cranstal to The Dog Mills, otherwise you may find yourself running out of beach at high tide!

I had planned to walk along Marine Drive in Douglas on Wednesday but it may be a step (or many steps) too far for my ankles/feet, but we’ll see. I hope to be fit enough to lead my U3A walk on July 14th as this had to be postponed this month.

The slideshow starts with the 3 buildings in line with one another, the old lighthouse, the foghorn peeping out and the newest, Winkie, on the right, then the rest of the slideshow is of the wonderful spring flowers.

Hop-along-Gill….

Just a very quick update to say that it will be a few weeks until I can record some more walks. Not only have I sprained my left ankle (as described in my Crete post), I have now sprained ligaments and tendons in my right foot – a compensatory injury most likely, and I have not been able to put any weight on it at all, and of course this has put even more pressure on my left foot. Watching me walk is not a pretty sight.

The care at Nobles was great yesterday, kind and considerate, and I am thankful for the painkillers they gave me as no over-the-counter medicine was touching it. Thank you too, to my good friend Janet, who stopped what she had planned to do to take me there. Hobbling along on crutches is not my idea of fun when doing a walk, so I shall take it easy and catch up on some reading and plan some holidays for 2023. I have already booked an HF holiday to Tenerife in January. I have a ‘big’ birthday next year and would quite like to go to Iceland or Norway. This lay-off could turn out to be quite expensive. It’s a good job I have a lot of new clients to teach online right now!

Meanwhile, once I am driving again, I shall post some photos of our beautiful countryside on the Isle of Man. It isn’t absolutely essential to walk to find lovely things to see and do here, so perhaps my posts will have a different flavour for a few weeks.

Spot the difference between the cover photo and the one below. Can you work out which was taken first? And, what was the occasion?

Time away in Crete

Yes, I know it’s not the Isle of Man, but reluctantly I cannot do any walks at the moment as I have an ankle injury sustained while I was… in Crete, two weeks ago.

This was a walking holiday but I was not sure how much walking I could actually do, so on the spur of the moment I put a sketch pad in my suitcase along with my walking boots and off I trotted to Crete. I have been before, but not stayed on the western side. I had hoped to do the Samaria Gorge this time, at least that was my intention.

We stayed in a beautiful 4 star hotel miles from anywhere in a village called Spilia, a little distance from Chania. If I wanted to do any walks by myself this would necessitate a 32 mins walk each way to the nearest village to use public transport. But I am not complaining. The hotel was so relaxing, with two lovely swimming pools; the food was excellent and each room was completely individual and all scattered around the complex. It had originally been an olive pressing factory.

I did some walks with the group, alternating days, sometimes doing my own thing and yes, I did do some sketching, sometimes just 30 mins sketches and at other times adding in watercolour, but nothing taking more than 2hrs from start to finish. This was an absolute joy and has opened my eyes to painting ‘plein air’. I never want to have to paint anything from a photo again. Just give me an image and let me and my imagination paint the picture.

My highlights of the week are probably rather different from the rest of the walking group. The intrepid walkers did do the Samaria Gorge, but I and others opted for the Imbros Gorge, this being the shorter option and with the opportunity of a boat ride to otherwise inaccessible villages along the coast. I completed the Imbros Gorge in under two hours, then did a quick sketch of a village by the sea and then Loutro after the boat ride. The weather of course, was just wonderful, hot and sunny, but not too hot. Other than that, my favourite times were spent on my own, walking up the hill to the magnificent St John’s Cave at Spilia, seeking out other lesser known tiny chapels built into the rocks, and paying for a tour to Elafonisi beach on a day when nobody in their right mind would think of spending time on the beach as it was really windy, open and exposed! It looks idyllic on the photos but they are deceptive. It was extremely windy! But I loved it, and despite sand blowing all over my paints and painting, my water getting blown over time and time again, and the wind and sun drying out the paint as soon as it landed on the paper, I have a sketch painting that I positively like. It has life and vibrancy, not surprisingly rather more than was actually present on the day. The odd thing about Elafonisi is that the coastal footpath is certainly not flat and even. You have to walk through a boulder field, often clambering over rocks taller than me, but offering views of the most beautiful coastal nature reserve. The E4 footpath goes right round the island. Now that sounds like my kind of walking, at least in my mind. I would go back there again should I revisit Crete, but take a little more care as it was on the last stretch of this that I twisted my ankle and it still swells and bruises two weeks later if I walk on it.

The cave of St John’s at Spilia was a real bonus. I didn’t expect it to be so spectacular. It was huge, with lots of nooks and crannies, so I was able to sit there with the dog I acquired on the way up and just do an outline of the pillar cave. On returning to the hotel, I spent a couple of hours painting it from memory. It is so nice to have 5 sketches /paintings all in one sketchpad and I shall take this with me every time I go away to add others to my collection. Florence will be my next trip in the autumn – just two or three days, but time for my more experiences and sketching. I think a sketchbook will be more memorable than any photo I could take and when I am in my dotage I shall enjoy reminiscing about my time in Crete and other places I have visited.

The HF walking party were great fun. We all got on together so well, and there was a lot of laughter, eating and drinking, and until I did my ankle, we played table tennis too. Thank you to everyone who made my holiday so enjoyable. I shall try and put behind me the absolutely dreadful treatment we got from Easyjet when our flight to the IOM was cancelled having been half way round England before taking us back to Gatwick and totally abandoning all the passengers in the evening and not even providing any food or accommodation! To make matters worse, there were no flights for 3 days. As you would expect, I found an alternative and was back on our island the next day.

So I finish with a slideshow of photos to whet your appetite. Oh, and if you wish to try out the hotel it is called Spilia Village and you can find out more here: https://spiliavillage.gr/