Douglas

The ninth leg of the Raad ny Foillan - all's well that ends . . . before the rain starts

21st September 2009

 

    The morning of the ninth walk started after a "weather-related" nightmare.  I think it was inspired by trying to make a decision about which day to walk.  Every morning the weather forecast changed.  On Saturday, the forecast for Tuesday looked better better than Monday - so we decided to wait for Tuesday.  By Sunday morning, the forecast for Monday had improved and Tuesday had deteriorated.  We changed back to Monday.  Of course, on Sunday night the forecasters had gone back to their initial opinion.  I didn't want to annoy everyone by changing the day again, but it must have been worrying me because I woke on Monday morning in the middle of a weird dream about pouring rain, a leaking roof and trying desperately to find Dorothy's phone number in old address books to warn her that we would be arriving late . . . and, to add to the confusion, it all took place in the house we lived in twenty years ago in Kloof!

 

    After meeting at Clay Head near Baldrine, we drove to Douglas Head.  There was a slight sprinkling of rain as we drove along the Promenade but nothing serious.  The first photograph shows the view across the bay from Douglas Head with the one of the SeaCats tied up at the jetty.

 

 

 

  It was a grey, overcast day - not quite raining but with a few darker, more ominous clouds lurking around.  We walked down the hill and found the steep steps down to the quay. We passed an elderly man (even older than us) running up the steps.  His morning exercise regime was obviously a lot more energetic than our leisurely stroll. 

 

  We crossed over the new Millennium Bridge which replaced an earlier pedestrian bridge.

 

  Then we walked past the Sea Terminal and along the Promenade.  Poor Leo had his tail firmly down because he is a country boy at heart and doesn't like traffic or strange people or having to walk on the lead . . .  and he was having to endure all three at once.  As soon as possible we took him down onto the sands for a short run.  Douglas beach, like a number of the other Island beaches, is closed to dogs after ten o'clock during the summer months.  It was just before ten and the only other people on the beach were accompanied by dogs - so we only bent the rules slightly.  Leo was delighted and cheered up immediately.

 

    After leaving the beach, we returned to the northern section of the Promenade.  As we approached Port Jack, we passed the remains of Summerland in the final stages of demolition.  Not many people will mourn its passing.  It was an incredibly ugly building and was the site of a tragic fire in 1973 - but, small children are not concerned with history, or architectural pretensions, and our grandchildren probably have happy memories of the little indoor playground . . .  Manxland. 

 

 

 

 

    After walking up the road to Onchan Head we turned off onto a footpath running between the top of the cliffs and the luxury apartment complexes.  Our route looped back to the road, skirting a small rather desolate bay.   It is marked on the map as Onchan Harbour but there were no boats sheltering there and no evidence that there ever had been.  Soon we turned off onto another section of footpath with views to the south past Onchan Head to Douglas Bay.  Onchan used to be a small village but has turned into a dormitory suburb of Douglas.

 

 

 

    Our footpath was again between "civilization" and the top of the cliffs and it seemed to have a schizophrenic character with neat suburban gardens on the left and wild, bramble and bracken covered slopes falling away to cliffs on the right.

 

 

 

    We rejoined the coast road near Howstrake - the site of much earlier holiday memories than Summerland.  There used to be a holiday camp on the hillside here, above Groudle Glen.  The Howstrake Holiday Camp started as a "male-only tented village" over a hundred years ago.  It was used by the RAF as a music school during the second world war - and was eventually closed down permanently after some of the buildings were destroyed by fire in 1980.  We stopped for a tea break in the "Howstrake Holiday Camp Station", the old waiting room at the tram halt.  It is rather dilapidated but sections of the benches were still intact and it provided welcome shelter from the wind and threatening rain.  

 

  Trevor told us a story about a tunnel under the road from the holiday camp and a tramp and his dog who used to live there.  When we walked down the road towards the Groudle turnoff, we found that the tunnel still existed.  We could look down at one end but the other end appeared to be obscured by trees.    Reading about the places that we visit on the walk is sometimes almost as interesting as the walk itself.  While I was finding information about the camp at Howstrake, I realised how much misinformation is published.  Wikipedia, which is never the most reliable of sources, claimed that the fire at the holiday camp was in 1985 (five years too late) and that "In the late 19th century it caused scandal by becoming the first camp on the island available to both sexes".  This date, when women were first admitted, is about forty years too early according to Mike Caine's well-researched website -  http://www.mike-caine.com/howstrake-howstrake-camp/   I am sure Mike Caine is right but I did rather prefer the fictional story about the Victorian scandal!  On Mike's site, I also found the answer to the purpose of the old entrance gates on the opposite side of the tracks to the "station", which apparently lead nowhere.  They were the entrance to Howstrake Park, Victorian pleasure gardens, which were in two sections above and below the road and were linked by the tunnel.

 

    The next section of the walk was through Groudle Glen.  There are some holiday homes there now and we also saw an application for planning permission for a single, detached residence nailed to a tree near the site of the old holiday camp.  The views are lovely . . .  out to sea or across the glen to the farmland to the north .  There is a narrow gauge railway on the opposite side of the glen.  It was originally built in 1896 at the height of the tourist boom but has been restored and is manned by volunteers on weekends.  It used to take holiday-makers to a small zoo at the Sea Lion Rocks.   Fortunately the zoo was closed down before the second world war because the sea lions and bears were kept in appalling conditions.

 

 

 

    After climbing out of Groudle Glen, we walked along minor tarred roads until we reached the turn-off to the Ballanette Wetlands Trust.  The headquarters of a plumbing and building services company are situated in some renovated farm buildings on this site and a number of small dams have been established in the surrounding farmland.  On one of the dams, we saw a couple of moorhens - and a pair of swans with their family of "ugly ducklings"

 

 

 

   Unlike most footpaths through farmland - where hikers are lucky to be tolerated and occasionally have to fight their way through ankle-deep mud or brambles and nettles - the path was well-maintained.  Hikers are welcome at Ballanette.  There was even a sign inviting us into the building to shelter from the rain, or use their toilets or have a cup of tea!  We didn't take up their offer because there were a few drops of rain around and we were in a hurry to get back to the cars.  A bit further on there was another nice gesture - a tap and a couple of mugs for the use of thirsty passers-by and even a bowl of water for passing canine-hikers.

 

    Where the footpath joined the end of the Clay Head road, we met some intrepid hikers wearing full wet-weather kit.  They were wise - because we got back to our car just before the serious rain started and it was raining hard all the way to Douglas when we drove back to fetch Trevor's car.