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.

A walk with Ozil

On Sunday Ozil Baboon went for a walk in the countryside to the south west of the island.  He started in the beautiful village of Brighstone and climbed up into the woods at Grammars Common.  Being a baboon Ozil took advantage of the opportunity for swinging in trees.

OK enough showing off Ozil, we know you can swing upside down!!

On leaving the wood Ozil could see the way ahead.  This is the Mottistone valley leading to the longstone.

We walked down the valley, to the house you can see in the distance, where Ozil visited the famous longstone.  It is thought to be an ancient burial artifact.

After the longstone there was a long slow climb up above the valley.  Ozil stopped to look back over where he had been.

A lot more climbing and Ozil was at the top.  He was pleased to say it was down hill all the way from there.

The cliffs behind Ozil are at Freshwater Bay, where we walked on Friday!  They are a long way west of where Ozil is, but he is high up so you can see a long way.

After a long descent we got back to Brighstone, where Ozil enjoyed swinging on the sign for the little village museum.  He would have like to go in but its not open on Sundays.

There is also a little library.  Ozil climbed up to see what time that would be open, but no luck there either.

We did a walk on Monday as well, but we spent a lot of time climbing over stinging nettles and avoiding getting stung, so no pictures, but it was a pretty walk.  We will blog about today's walk tomorrow.

Introducing Ernest

A couple of months ago the Baboon HQ laptop decided to stop working properly.  I took pictures of our new baboon, Ernest, but did not do the blog to introduce him. So, now we have the new Baboon HQ laptop (awesome), I would like to introduce Ernest Baboon, who joined Baboon HQ in June.

We took Ernest for a walk to Fishbourne and he stopped off for a rest outside the church of Holy Cross at Binstead.  This is a 13th Century church.  I hope Hurley is reading this blog, because he will see that Ernest is a cousin of his baboon, Boise.  We called him Ernest after our person's grandfather.

This was Ernest's first visit to the countryside and he loved the thatched cottages in Binstead.

Of course Ernest is a baboon so swinging in trees is a favourite pastime.  This is the wood between Binstead and Quarr.

Ernest had a look at the old ruins of Quarr Abbey, it was destroyed by Henry VIII when he dissolved the monasteries in England.  The monks went to Belgium to escape from the persecution of Catholics, and did not come back for 400 years, when they built the new abbey.  Ernest did not visit the new abbey on this occasion, as it was a Sunday and the monks would be praying.

By the time Ernest got to Fishbourne he was quite tired and rested on the seat under this ancient tree.

Ernest had a look at the sea at Fishbourne, you can see the mainland behind him.

Before coming home Ernest had a final swing in a tree at Fishbourne.

Ernest is enjoying being a Baboon HQ baboon and is taking a full part in Baboon HQ life.  He is a great chap and we enjoy having him living here.

Baboons, monsters, ice cream and scooters!

Harry Baboon has had a busy day!  He gets to go out quite a lot because he is a good poser!

He started out at Yarmouth Harbour, where there were lots of very expensive yachts around today.

Next he walked down the disused railway that he has often walked down, to the causeway at Freshwater.

He crossed this very big field, to the golf course on the top of the hill, over Freshwater Bay.  Harry doesn't stop there for photos, golf balls are best avoided!!

After walking around Freshwater, he took a loop back towards Yarmouth.  He saw these passion flowers.  He wondered whether they had landed from outer space.

Into the woods and Harry did the normal baboon climbing activities.  This is a very pretty wood that takes us back towards Yarmouth.

Back at Yarmouth Harry thought it was time the Lifeboat needed inspecting.

Harry also reacquainted himself with this creature, that ate Yarmouth pier.  I think posing in the teeth is above and beyond the call of duty.  Brave lad!!

Back in Ryde, Harry felt it was time for ice cream.  He went to the very nice ice cream parlour on the harbour.  He chose the lemon meringue flavour!!  Yummy!

That gave Harry the energy to check out the scooter rally in Ryde.  It happens every August Bank Holiday weekend, people come with their scooters, talk to each other about all kinds of scooter interesting facts and drink lots of beer.  It is a fun festival.  Harry saw a large number of scooters.

Harry chose this scooter to ride.

It is so smart and shiny and a brilliant colour!

After that Harry felt it was time to put his paws up back at Baboon HQ!  A tiring but fun day.