Another fine mess . . .
Wednesday 9 January,
2013.
If the wet walking trend, which started at
the beginning of this year, continues much longer, I will start believing in
unlucky numbers. During the first walk of 2013 we were saturated by rain. We
thought the second walk would be drier because the forecast was for a dry, sunny
day but we couldn't have been more wrong.
We met at Bride at nine o'clock, planning to
walk down to the Ayres and follow the coastal footpath around the northern tip
of the Island. The car park is just across the road from St Bridget's church.
The steeple was glowing in the first rays of the morning sun. Sunrise is just
after 08-30 at this time of year.
Just past the church, the banks at the side of the road (which runs from Bride
towards The Lhen) were covered with winter heliotrope (Petasites fragrans).
This is not a native plant but has gone wild since being introduced to Europe
from north Africa. I thought of taking a photo but took too long to make up my
mind. I looked for more patches but only spotted some rather weather-beaten red
campion. Winter heliotrope always reminds me of our first visit to the Island.
I noticed it in particular because the leaves are the same shape as a common
lawn weed in Natal - but about ten times as big and I wondered whether they were
related.
Looking over the bank at the side of the
road, we got our first glimpse of the lighthouse at the Point of
Ayre.
We followed the road until we came to the
footpath down to the Ayres. I had predicted mud along this path and it more
than lived up to expectations.
Once we had passed the stretch of path that
had been used by farm vehicles there was hardly any mud and we thought our
problems were over until we came round a bend in the path and were confronted by
this scene.
There didn't seem to be any route around this
informal lake. Trevor suggested retracing our steps and then walking along the
edge of the fields on the left of the footpath. We tried this but, after
crossing two fields and climbing a couple of barbed wire fences. I chickened
out, Trevor and Dorothy wanted to continue over the next barbed wire fence and
through another field but Tim and I are not so brave about trespassing (or
barbed wire). We decided to climb over an old gate from the field into an
overgrown area. We thought we might be able to find a way through the brambles,
gorse and heather between the farmland and the path around the little plantation
on the Ayres. The brambles near the gate were almost shoulder high but Tim
managed to force his way through, beating them down with my stick. I followed,
carrying Danny who was shivering. I am not sure what was frightening him - the
ferocious brambles or Tim wielding the stick. That was the worst bit, but it
didn't get much better. We tried to pick our way through the vegetation and
around the pools of water but finally gave up and walked through a patch of
tall heather. Unfortunately the water was deep enough to run into the top of
our boots so we arrived at the plantation with extremely wet feet.
This is the "path" around the
plantation.
Tim sat down and said he needed to wring out
his socks and I walked through to the other side of the plantation to look for
Dorothy and Trevor. I thought they would probably be half way to the lighthouse
but we were actually ahead of them. While I was waiting for them to catch up, I
sat down and took off my boots, emptied the water out of them and did some very
necessary sock wringing. I was thinking that Tim and I had made the wrong
decision and should have stayed with the others - until I heard that Trevor and
Dorothy had been shouted at by an angry farmer. Then I decided that I preferred
wet socks to angry farmers and cheered up a bit.
We walked back through the plantation to find
Tim. On the way we crossed the remains of this old wall made of earth faced
with large pebbles from the beach.
We set off again, heading north and expecting
to see more pools of water but I had become completely disorientated It
may have been due to a combination of the stress of trespassing and hiking
through brambles and bogs. But was probably because we approached the plantation
from an unusual direction and because a lot of gorse had been cleared since we
were last there - so that all it looked different. The corner of the plantation
where we met up with Tim was the north-eastern corner, not the south eastern
corner as I wrongly assumed.
We weren't really lost but we ended up
walking along a path much closer to the sea than the one I wanted to walk along
- which passes the boggy area where we look for marsh orchids in spring.
It turned out to be a serendipitous error because Tim and I revisited the Ayres
the next morning and I took this photo of the boggy area. The path I intended
taking yesterday is under the right hand edge of the lake.
By contrast, our actual route north yesterday was
completely dry.
Most of the Ayres Nature Reserve is very well
drained as the soil is sandy debris deposited after the last ice age. The
vegetation is interesting with sparse grasses, burnet roses, heather, gorse and
pale greeny grey lichen.
We didn't even stop for coffee because we
needed to keep moving to keep warm. Gore-Tex is great for keeping water out of
boots but works pretty well at keeping it in if your boots and socks are already
saturated. I only found out later that Tim was even wetter than I was because
he had stumbled, and nearly fell right over, in the wet heather before we
reached the plantation. One leg of his jeans was saturated to well above the
knee and he had taken them off to wring out some of the water while I was
looking for Dorothy and Trevor!
We were glad to reach the
lighthouse at the most northerly tip of the Island and turn back towards Bride.
When we passed the Point of Ayre car park, Danny
ran over to a couple of women who were standing chatting by a car. He looked as
though he was having a quiet word and asking them whether he could have a lift
home. He definitely thought that we had been walking long enough and checked
out the other vehicles hoping to find our car.
The path along the coast wasn't too bad but
was overgrown in places and we had to walk on the shingle beach for a while. I
liked this little deserted village - summer homes of sand martins. They had
been excavated in a layer of sand which was sandwiched between layers of
pebbles.
We joined the road near Cranstal. There is
an interesting gate post at the entrance to this derelict farmyard. It is an
old cannon.dating back to the Civil War.
Ever since passing the lighthouse we had been
steeple-chasing. At first, the steeple on the Bride church was barely visible.
By the time we reached the thatched cottages it stood out clearly against the
sky. But it still looked a depressingly long way away.
We took the direct route back along the
road. Usually we turn off near the cottages and walk along the damp path where
the yellow flag irises flower in summer but we had had enough mud for one walk
and just wanted to get home.
I did stop for a minute though, to take a
photo when we passed another bank of winter heliotrope near the Bride
School.
