Distance - 13.1 Miles
Geocaches - 4
Places of Interest - Blackgang Chine
Previous Stages - Day 1, Day 2
There is rather an important football game on tonight. Bus Times require an early start and a bit of a route march to get to the only return transportation that guarantees being seated in front of a TV at 5pm.
Not that there is much on this stretch of the IOW Coast Path to delay us. It is remarkably bleak. The sea fret not helping with things.
Exiting Ventnor provides all of today's geocaches. A wild camper - in an unfathomably large family tent - is guarding one particular ground zero. My ferreting at fence posts awakes him and he comes out to pontificate about today's game - claiming to both hate football and be very anxious about the result. We assure him we are not the tent inspectors and head off - leaving behind some pretty beaches and coves to get up onto high farmland. We could be walking anywhere.
Coves, just outside Ventnor |
Up on field edges - with the Sea Fret obscuring views |
Progress is marked by passing the most Southerly part of the Island - St Catherines Point. It's that grim a day that the lighthouse is turned on.
If I had timed the photo better, you would have seen a flash |
Even on a tight schedule, refreshment stops need to be made. The map has a big blue cup of joy in Shale - but will it be there and will it be open? Fortunately, the Wight Mouse Inn is operating as a hotel - so once you can find access via a convoluted covid one way system - that has completely flummoxed the pensioners exiting through the in door - we have liquid refreshments at 11:50am.
Shale Church |
Back on the road at 12:20pm |
The cliffs are regained - along with a confusing notice that they are dangerous and the path is closed but offering no detour or indication of how long the path is closed for. We press on, hugging the farmers fence and learn the meaning of a "Chine". It is where water meets the coast and due to the the cliffs being basically made of mud - significant detours have to be made inland to get around them.
Blackgang Chine is the first and most significant - with a family fun attraction that must be closed - judging by the empty car park.
The crumbling mud cliffs of South Isle of Wight |
A less significant detour is met at Whale Chine and finally, at Shepherd's Chine - the coast path disappears and we give up on it.
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