Isle Of Wight : Nature Shows It All

The British Isles, as the name suggests, consists of a number of islands. Great Britain, of course is the largest island but there are many small island scattered across the English Channel, Irish Sea and right up to the Atlantic.
My job has now taken me towards the south in a town named Basingstoke. Not so far from this place, the one famous island which is flocked by tourists is the ‘Isle of Wight’. I first heard about this when I had visited Bournemouth five years back as there were cruises going up to there.
Initially I thought it would be just an island with some natural rocks and stony arches which the day cruises show you on the go. A day trip at the maximum was my idea of the island. Little did I know that it would require a minimum two-day visit to cover the place entirely.  As in it consists of small towns and villages which are normal to any of the mainstream towns and people actually live there locally. More research told us it would be a special place so it had to be visited on a sunny weekend. Reaching there was pretty straight forward – a train to Southampton followed by a one hour ferry ride to East Cowes on the island.

We shrugged off the Saturday morning laziness and dragged ourselves to the train to Southampton by around 1 PM.  We boarded the Red Funnel ferry from Southampton port (the iconic port from where the Titanic might have departed 104 years ago) at around 3 PM and set sail towards the Isle of Wight. As always on such Saturdays, we hardly had any time to eat so we took advantage of the menu on offer on the ferry. We settled for a sumptuous fish and chips meal after which we decided to hit the upper deck for the view and pictures. The ferry was quite luxurious. A large area to sit and eat along with a bar. In addition, another bar and seating area on the upper deck. I read that it can accommodate up to eight hundred passengers along with cars. The lower most desk had the cars parked.  It was a sunny weekend and many decided to taste the summer sun at the Isle of Wight so we had quite a full ferry with a number of cars.  We reached the East Cowes, a port in the northern most point of Isle of Wight. We had to wait for a while to board the bus to Newport. We planned that we would hang out at Newport since that was the most central town and the busiest area, check out the Carisbrook castle and then head off to Shanklin where our hotel was booked. Unfortunately, that turned out to be too ambitious. Bus journeys are long here due to the narrow roads and on account of the number of stops.  We were losing time and were tired too.  We reached Newport and then boarded a bus to Carisbrook castle but we gave up as it was quite a walk to the castle from the nearest spot.  We retreated to Newport and took the safe option of heading off to Shanklin.  However, the bus journeys gave us a glimpse of the magnificent island which had a bit of everything – mountains, plains, sea. The bus journey towards Shanklin was fascinating and it gave us a peek in to some beautiful villages, mountains and of course the English Channel.  

Shanklin was a town by the sea-side.  By the time we reached, it was quite late and the roads were already deserted.  Luckily, we received internet on the phone which enabled us to navigate to our hotel.  The roads were deserted but there were hotels in plenty. In fact every building looked to be a hotel. The main road was studded with shops and restaurants just like any other town centre. The lanes, though deserted, looked beautiful and quiet so typical of any small English town.  We checked in to our room and after a bit of rest, hit the roads to explore the place. The sea was just round the corner. There was still bright day-light thanks to the long summer days. We were treated to a gorgeous sight of the English Channel from a certain height. The town is located at an elevated hill which meant that we had to take the steps down to reach the sea. It was similar to what we found up north in Scarborough a month back. We decided not to go down that evening as the place had some beautiful walks which were enough for the evening.  The clock was ticking away and by the time we returned to the hotel, dinner time was over.  As usual, an Indian restaurant came to our rescue. We located one on the main road in the town centre named ‘Jasmine’ which was open till mid-night so we relaxed.  There was a live music programme in the hotel where a lady was crooning some lovely old melodies. We enjoyed it with some snacks and drinks after which we headed towards ‘Jasmine’, where we had a typically amazing Indian dinner. We were still not done. We decided to take a post dinner walk further exploring the lanes of the small town. We finally retired around mid-night to get some well deserved sleep before a long day ahead the next day.

Alum Bay

As planned, we started early as we did not want to waste a whole day of sunshine with limited time in hand. Breakfast was followed by a walk on the same route that we covered the day before. The sea wore a different colour in the morning. We decided on going down to the sea-side but on the way was a beautiful walk through a forest region which was called the ‘The Shanklin Chine’. It was a beautiful forest area with trees, waterfall and all. We had to pay a few pounds for it but it was worth it. A well preserved natural area had some area to explore. Unfortunately as our time was limited we made our way to the sea-side after some initial exploration.  The sea side was serene to say the least.  It was too early for the crowd to set in. We started off at an ice-cream parlour where I tasted some ginger beer and wife settling for some ice cream. This was followed by a long walk along the sea and then up the hill to the bus stand. Our destination would be the most important attraction of the island –‘The Needles’ in Alum Bay. This was at the western most point in the island. We had to reach Newport and board another bus that would take us to Alum Bay. We got box seats on the upper deck of the bus to Newport and were all set for a great view of the island countryside. Our camera was in ‘zoom’ mode and we captured some wonderful colours that nature offered.  The best part was that the island all possible natural beauty possible – Hills, plains and the sea.  It would be all green, suddenly we would see a strip of yellow and then it would all turn blue as we hit the sea. After back to back bus journeys, we reached Alum Bay at around 1 PM. The place lived up to its billing and clearly looked to be the main tourist attraction. Hordes of buses were parked as tourists flocked to the place.  It was another place where the hills met the sea. The Needles are a series of white rocks in the sea. It sticks out like Needles out of the water and hence the name. 

The Needles

There is a cable car which took us down the hills to the sea level providing us a breathtaking view of the Needles.  We got down from the cable car at the sea side and decided to spend some time on the beach.  The maximum we could do was to dip our feet as the water was way too cold for us to go for a swim. There were a number of people doing the same while some venturing out for a swim.  After an hour or so, we decided to move on. We got into the cable car once again and were on our way up. The place had all the possible touristy facilities – souvenir shops and restaurants.  We made use of both – purchased our refrigerator magnet and had lunch.  We were now done and all set to head back to Newport as we had to board the ferry back to Southampton.  This was again done through two bus journeys – from Alum Bay to Newport and then from Newport to East Cowes. Once again the journey provided a peek into the beautiful countryside.  Without any further breaks we boarded the ferry towards Southampton around 6-30 PM which gave us sufficient time at hand to reach Southampton train station to board our train back to Basingstoke.  The trip down to the island exceeded expectations and we thought it was worth an extra day to enjoy some more of the island. Simply put, the thing I liked the most about the place was that it had a bit of everything – towns, villages, hills, plains, sea.  If one sees ‘Isle of Wight’, one has seen most of England, as far as natural beauty is concerned.