Ayres

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.