Ramsey to the point of Ayre – 18th September 2022 Headed back to finish the circumnavigation of the Island. Since the flight was on time and it was a lovely evening, I decided to get a head start and do a few miles today and very glad I am that I did. The shore stretching for some 24 miles is shingle not sand. There is the odd bit of relief when a patch free of stones appears but otherwise it is the ankle breaking, hard to plough through crap. My initial idea of doing 22 miles of this in one day seems ridiculous now, a beach too far, as it were.
Home for the next few days and the starting point this evening. The Ramsey Park Hotel.The promenade and the beach at the foot of those sand cliffs to come.Feral kayak child in process of drowning foolish teacher.Look, I’m not moving till the frigging parents bring me some frigging fish! Kayak boy has done a runner.The beach and a noice piece of sand. Heading to that headland.Can you see them. Look closely now.Take off. Brilliant camouflage. Big bad Padre is coming by. I think they’re Sandpipers. To the west, Whitehaven and the Lake district.Those headlands in the distance to the north are – that’s right class – Scotland.What manner of devil lives in those holes? Puffins. Went by too fast to get a shot.The Dunes-Junes-Doons are bloody massive.Looking back to Ramsey along the bay, named after that street from that lovely little program, Neighbours.Land, sand, slide. a slandslide.Now then. What’s around the corner?A veritable sea monster.The problem with these flipperly dogs is that they love the water too much. Head in too deep.Keeping me company. Every few minutes the head pops up to check on me. We shall call him Sid.Ah! A fortuitous sofa.Sid checking in. It’s been an hour now.A lovely bit of grass, Grommet.Bloody hell! I’ve made it to the point of Ayre. A sister foghorn to the one at the light, white house.The pride. Those dolphins of a certain nature are so keen to push the message that they leap out of the water and accost the tourists.
If only I had my magic bit of string to measure how far I’d managed today. It was wrapped around the sleeve of my map but some ne’er-do-well nearly 16-year-olds, high on God knows what disturbed/perused it and it is gone. Sad face.
