A difficult walk

Yesterday, Harry went on a difficult walk with lots of climbing and then long descents.  It is a beautiful walk and he got quite a few pictures.

The walk starts in Shanklin Old Village, at St Blasius church, where Harry sat on the lychgate, at the entrance, to draw a deep breath, before starting out.  Its not a very long walk, only eight miles, but it starts with about two miles of steep climbing.

You walk around the church and there is a stone style behind, leading to a short path.

At the end of the path you begin to see the way ahead, you need to climb up through these two fields, to get to the steep climb.

After the steady climb through the fields, then the real work starts.

Phew that part of the climb is behind us.  Time for a rest on the gate.

A bit more climbing and the view over the downs is beautiful.

Harry turned the other way to see these lovely woods.

More climbing and finally we get to the top of Shanklin Down.  The view is fantastic.  It was a bit misty yesterday, because of the heat, but we could see Freshwater Bay in the distance to the south west.  If you can see the little bit of white, that is it.

Inland over the valley where strawberries, tomatoes, lettuces, sweetcorn and garlic grow.

Looking straight down, through the heat haze, you can see Shanklin, the town where the walk starts.  So far there has been a lot of climbing, but not much progress towards the destination.

The next thing was to cross a style in the hedge and see the next valley, where there are villages including Godshill and Wroxall.  You can just see Wroxall in the distance.

We walked along a bit further and came to Luccombe Down.

This is very high up and the main plants are stunted trees, gorse, bracken and this lovely heather.

The walk goes along the ridge and around the valley.  Harry looked back at how far he had come.

Harry really enjoys looking at the beautiful countryside.

Harry reached Wroxall Down, having cross a couple of others, along the top.  From there it was not long before the descent started.  The first part of this is down a road, it is very steep and there are cars going in both directions, so we have to be very careful and do not stop for pictures.  At the end of that part of the descent we reached the resort of Ventnor, which is on the other side of the downs from Shanklin.

Here you have to go down lots and lots of steps and some steep roads.  Harry really started to see how far he had climbed.

On Ventnor seafront it was time for coffee at the Met Bar.  Harry was really happy that they gave us chocolate to accompany the coffee, he felt he needed the energy.  The walk was only half done!

This giant ice cream sundae would have really given him he energy he needed!!

We walked along by Ventnor beach, where everyone was having fun.  This picture looks a bit grey, but it was actually very sunny.

We walked from Ventnor to Bonchurch, along this nice flat walkway.  It was a relief.

Bonchurch has a nice bay for swimming.  I don't know why it looks so grey, it was lovely and sunny there.

We walked back to Shanklin via the landslip, where there is a lot of climbing up and down and some very fun woods.

We walked through the landslip and came out at Luccombe common and then back down to Shanklin and lunch.  We were so hungry we forgot to photograph Harry's lunch.

Today is not so nice and sunny and they say it will rain, although it hasn't yet.  We will be going out for breakfast, doing some shopping and taking it easy.  There may be a walk but we are not sure.