Wednesday 2^nd September 2015 – 35/52 – Pleinmont to Pembroke Bay.

What a difference a week makes: it was a beautiful morning, with the sun shining and a gentle breeze for our 11 mile walk today, a total contrast to the awful wet and windy conditions I had for the walk last week. Andy, my son, was my walking buddy today, and with my regulars not available there were no other walkers joining us for the 10am start.

The tide was well in as we set off, and as we progressed along the coastal road to L’Eree there were points where the tide was coming gently over the sea wall. There is always a lot of seaweed in this area and today was no different, with multiple piles off it both in the sea and on the foreshore. As we passed the toilet block at L’Eree it was quite interesting seeing the footprints of the seagulls in the sand against the sea wall, almost suggesting they might have been having a game of noughts and crosses!

On to Perelle, and we passed a group of building workers carefully repointing the sea wall in preparation for the winter storms possibly hitting the island. Once you reach Richmond Corner and get on to the coastal path heading towards Vazon Bay it is a splendid sight on a good day like today, with that long, curving bay lit up by the shimmering colours of the sea, the rocks, and the golden sand on the beaches. There were lots of local people clearly taking advantage of the sunshine with their children prior to them going back to school again tomorrow after the summer break, as well as other locals and holidaymakers doing their own thing on the beach and in the sea.
Once through Vazon and the popular Cobo Bay, (left)with the sea receding quickly, we were soon passing Port Soif (below) and the Kiosk. It really was just ideal walking conditions and it was great to see many people around taking advantage of the beautiful weather and views as the sea continued to retreat, exposing the rocks and the golden beaches.

For the very first time on this leg of my walks we went all the way around the headland at Portinfer, at Andy’s suggestion: an area I must admit I had never walked before. It was a total contrast to what I had expected and I was very pleasantly surprised to see how well the space had been developed to accommodate the Clay Pigeon Club, which is very active and well established on the island.

All this walking on such a lovely day was starting to make me hungry and I was starting to think about demolishing one of those delicious crab sandwiches at Rousse Kiosk; fortunately Philippa had not run out when we got there, and yes, they were just delicious.

Left – Philippa with some of her wares

Now on the tail end of the 11-mile walk we skipped around Picquerel and onto L’Ancresse Common. Ladies’ Bay was looking good as we passed – it was great to see swimmers out there, despite the low tide

Conscious of the bus times we had to put a spurt on to get to the finishing line at Pembroke Bay, but we made it with more time to spare than I thought we would have due to the buses running late because of road works.

Right – looking from the upper level of the Beach Cafe at Pembroke over L’Ancresse Bay to Fort Le Marchant.

We both had very much enjoyed today’s walk, and I was well pleased for Andy as this will probably be his last walk before he leaves the Island.

All photographs today are courtesy of Visit Guernsey and their wonderful contributors