It is funny how you build up prejudices about places because you associate them with a single person or incident.
When I told my mother we were going to explore East Cowes Esplanade her head turned 360 degrees and she wailed in disapproval. After intense psychotherapy we discovered the cause of this feeling was a grim day out from Southampton when I was a child in the 1980s. They were living on the mainland and had taken a trip without a great deal of research into the weather or a car to explore (websites such as this offering rainy day ideas were clearly not an option...). So, they spent the day in the rain on a tatty old playground in East Cowes and vowed never to return. She has kept her word in the subsequent decades and decided not to join us on this trip. Nowadays, East Cowes Esplanade is much improved and is a useful spot if you have time to fill before a Red Funnel car ferry. There's a large paddling pool (certainly not heated but just about bearable) as well as lots of modern play equipment. It is mostly for younger children although there are a couple of climbing areas for older children. There's also a cafe and toilet block. No idea if the cafe is any good, but it was busy which is a positive sign. The beach at East Cowes is nothing special. It has an interesting view of a busy stretch of water with ferries coming and going, but it is a bit scrubby and on a bit too much of a slope for beach games. I could imagine sitting there on a summer’s evening with a tin of cheap lager discussing Tarantino films, but that’s about it. The main problem though was the stench, which I assume was only temporary because of the way the wind was blowing. If it is a frequent thing then I would have expected to see local residents carrying pot pourri pouches or a man selling nose pegs by the side of the road. Apart from that, it's a nice enough spot. Give it another decade and I'll persuade my mother to return to East Cowes.
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If you see a VW carrying a surfboard on the Isle of Wight you can be fairly confident that the driver is a) called Brad and b) heading to Compton Bay.
You will struggle to find a glossy brochure on the ferry which doesn't recommend that beach as place to go for surf. I would generally say the same and gave the same lazy bit of advice in our guide to the best Isle of Wight beach for... A few weeks ago though my life changed forever... in Shanklin. Well, not quite, but it is a piece of advice worth passing on. The surf forecast told me that Compton Bay was flat as a steam rolled pancake for the next week so we gave up on body boarding and decided to have a serene swim in Shanklin which has better facilities for little ones (toilets, indoor play, amusements, mini golf). With my bodyboard sat in the garage at home I was more than a little disappointed to see big waves on the beach at Shanklin. There was no sign of Brad or any of his surfing friends either. And so we had an entertaining swim, trying to avoid being knocked over by the enthusiastic waves and unsure if we should be enjoying ourselves or just be annoyed that we didn't bring the bodyboards. A friend once told be that when the surf was poor at Compton it was often good at Sandown or Shanklin. I'd sort of ignored his advice as it hadn't seen it for myself. Anyway, I've now added a link to the Shanklin surf report to our surf forecast page, and next time I'll pack my bodyboard. The Isle of Wight likes to market itself as a dinosaur destination. I'm not exactly sure that many tourists plan their trips around extinct animals but it does look good on the posters if nothing else.
Some fossil finds look pretty indistinct from stones unless you know what you are looking for but there are some (alleged) dinosaur footprints at Brook Chine which I'd been told by my mother were more dramatic and worth seeking out. On a glorious sunny day at low tide I headed for the headland where Hanover Point meets Brook Chine, as instructed by my mother. After a fairly long time photographing any vaguely foot shaped rock I decided to phone home for further advice. "Head for a jaggedy bit, then a flat bit and then there's a big bit missing where someone has taken an angle grinder to one of the fossils" I was told. An angle grinder! Seriously, why does anyone feel they could possibly get away with stealing a huge fossil embedded in the earth? Honestly, such thieves (sorry, 'collectors') should be chained to the seabed themselves to replace the attraction they've taken away. Why not knick Stonehenge, or redirect Niagara Falls so that it goes past your window? In fact, if we can start stealing national treasures, why not get the Queen to come and live in your lounge and serve you vol-au-vents? Anyway, as usual I digress. My search continued, until I found something much closer to the shore which seemed to resemble a photo I had seen some time ago. I called over some chums I was on the beach with and began the discussion of whether it was a footprint or just a rock that was sort of shaped like a foot. Half way through the discussion with my sceptical audience, an older gentlemen stopped and started looking at the same rock. I did what my mother would do, and started talking to a complete stranger. "Is this a dinosaur footprint?" I asked. "Yes of course, and there are many more on the beach" he replied. We questioned the evidence, as he was clearly a bit of an enthusiast, to which he replied that it was "accepted knowledge" that these were indeed dinosaur footprints. He also attempted an explanation of how they had formed, which was a little vague and would be even vaguer if I attempted to repeat it. I then asked him about people stealing such things by taking an angle grinder to a national treasure. He looked a little shifty and asked if I knew who had done it, to which I said I didn't know, before casually saying that he knew someone who had one of these in his private collection. If I'd been sitting on a chair I'd have fallen off it. After two minutes detective work I had a lead in my search for the thieving culprits. This could be the beginnings of a career in coastal crime detection, or more likely the makings of an ITV daytime police drama called Inspector Cliff Shaw. I decided not to pin down the elderly gentleman and scream "give me a name!". Instead I made some nice small talk about the weather. I returned home and showed off my slideshow of 'dinosaur footprints' to my mother. "Those aren't the dinosaur footprints, those are just rocks that are shaped a bit like feet" she told me confidently. My excited little face fell. Had I seen the footprints or just a big rock? Back to the beach then Inspector Shaw. Our trip to Thorness Bay was pretty awesome. Despite the weird trek through the speed-bump infested caravan park and the slight risk of being locked in a car park overnight, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves and I was ready to declare Thorness Bay as the Isle of Wight’s best sunset spot, contrary to the usual declarations that Gurnard deserves the crown.
But alas, there’s always a spanner gliding through the air just waiting to end up in the works (sorry, that was a terribly clumsy attempt at a metaphor). On a sunny Friday night we headed over to Hanover Point and walked towards Compton Bay – perhaps my favourite spot on the Island, which logically makes it my favourite spot it the World, probably. Over the years I’ve spent many evenings admiring sunsets at the beach, but it had been a good few years since the stars had aligned such as they did on that evening so I had rather forgotten how nice it can be. The weather had been baking, so stepping outside actually felt like we were wandering along the Mediterranean on a summer's evening, and we didn’t have to just pretend it was nice. The tide was fairly low and the sky was cloudless. On paper, Compton Bay sunsets shouldn’t be the best on the Isle of Wight. Indeed, God could have designed it so that the sun sets over the horizon rather than behind the cliffs of Freshwater Bay and Tennyson Down. But he didn’t. Without wishing to turn into a great big pretentious gusher, I would contest that imperfection can be more beautiful than perfection. We were joined on our stroll by an older couple who were happily walking hand in hand, at least until the lady fell over on some rocks. Luckily she was giddy enough to find this hilarious, which also gave me permission to snort loudly through my nose, much like a pig who had just been given a toffee apple. The sun slowly dropped, the waves lapped on the shore and I drank a cup of tea out of a flask. There was even a weird haziness, which gave Compton Bay an extra point on the Isle-of-Wight-Guru-Sunsetness-Scale. I think I may have found the Isle of Wight’s perfect sunset, for this week anyway. I've always advised romantic old fools that they should head to Gurnard for the Isle of Wight's best sunsets. The sun sets nicely over the green beach huts with the mainland straight ahead and pretty little yachts sailing past.
We discovered an alternative recently that may be even nicer though, at Thorness Bay near Porchfield. The beach's main access requires you to navigate your way through Thorness Bay Holiday Park which is one of the few caravan sites on the northern section of the island. This experience was much like finding your way out of a foreign city with my wife making helpful comments such as "didn't we pass that woman watching Coronation Street 10 minutes ago?" and "Isn't this bit one-way?" After seeing every single caravan on the site three times we found the bumpy path down to the beach. On post trip research it looks like there are other spots where you can walk down, but not much option if you want to drive. The beach itself is unlikely to be the one they choose to put on the front of the tourism magazines which fill up the racks on the ferry. It's a bit scrubby and can't really decide if it wants to be sandy or stoney. At low tide though it is a gorgeous landscape with farming fields on one side and woodland on the other. Best of all was the sunset which slowly turned the sky red. At low tide a huge pool appeared away from the sea meaning it was shallow and static enough to reflect back the sunset. I was so overcome with the whole thing that I nearly got down on one knee to propose, until I remembered I was already married. A few other happy onlookers gawped out to sea along with several fishermen who I assume had suggested taking the kids away to Thorness Bay with a secret plan to spend the whole week holding a fishing rod. We headed home, only slightly panicked by the sight of a locked gate on our way out. Thankfully we negotiated our way through and began uploading our #nofilter photos to anyone who was interested and many more people who weren't. Shocking news - I've changed my mind about Ryde. I've always been a little bit rude about Ryde, in the British way of being rude about somewhere or someone without actually being too direct. If anyone told me they were planning a holiday to Ryde I would say something like "Oh wonderful, have you considered Shanklin?" My polite prejudice was established over many years in which we rarely visited the town, instead heading over to the West Wight for beaches or Newport for shops. I never disliked it strongly, I just preferred other Isle of Wight towns. Anyway, with a two year old to entertain we returned to Appley for the first time in a while. After passing the seafront bowling alley (which also has laser tag now) and ice rink we got to a new looking paddling pool. The various jets and sploshy things didn't seem to be working but our little one was delighted. Well, she mostly insisted that she watched me paddle from the side but one day she'll enjoy it and the other little splashers seemed to be having fun. Further along was a decent playground right on the seafront with lots of new looking slides. The wind was so strong that I wondered if the hovercraft had parked up next to us, but it was obvious that it would be an idyllic spot for a play on a less windy day. The beach itself was slightly more sheltered and the tide was so low that it looked as if you could walk to Gunwharf Quays, pick up some discount Levi's and then walk back to the beach. Best of all the beach was properly golden and soft - the kind of sand that you can sink your feet in to rather than the sort for building sand castles (you'd have to walk towards the sea a bit for that). There was a lone kite flyer who had picked an excellent day and had a huge amount of space to lark around with hardly anyone else around, and not many dogs to yap around his feet, which kite flyers usually have to put up with.
We had planned to carry on to Puckpool Park, which has its own entertainments but we were running out of time. On a previous wintery visit the former Harcourt Sands site was looking pretty sorry for itself but hopefully that will see happier days soon. The main downside with Appley is the recent introduction of parking charges to what was previously a free car park. On my first trip to Appley as a driver some time ago I remember searching around with bemusement for a parking meter, unable to accept that there wasn't a council nearby looking to squeeze a few pounds out of me. Maybe it was the sunshine talking, but I concluded that Ryde wasn't all that bad after all. The town has loads of independent shops now, there is enough on the seafront for a full day with children of any age, plus it has the country's oldest pier, which makes the view a bit more interesting. I'm sorry Ryde, let's be friends. |
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April 2024
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