Isle of Wight (Again...)

With the lovely summer weather upon us (yes the sun does shine over here...) we thought it was time to head back over and see what the Isle of Wight had to offer. You may remember the last time we went over that it was a pretty grim and dire place. This time, instead of Ryde, we caught the car ferry from Southampton to Cowes.

On the way over we got a pretty good view of the Solent (the name of the water that separates Southampton from the Isle) and got to see all the container ships entering and exiting the port. The trip took about 60 minutes and although it was a little chilly, it was still quite lovely sitting outside.

Once we arrived Peter scuttled my plan for a quick coffee break so we headed straight to Osborne House, which was used by Queen Victoria during her reign as a country house. Like most country houses this place was lavishly decorated and had some nice gardens but, as you probably realise from my previous postings, was not really a place I would like to live in. Nonetheless it was quite pleasant to walk around the gardens and we even got a chance to sit and have a nice cup of coffee (thanks Peter!).

From here we basically drove around the Island (which is a lot bigger then it seems) trying to find places to eat lunch. It seemed like the entire mainland had taken advantage of the nice weather to head over as all the nice pubs were chockers. We ended up stopping at an awful pub (in a nice village though) for something resembling lunch.

We then headed around to the chalk downland ridge, which was on the very western part of the Island. Here there was an old artillery battery and something known as the Needles. They were like the 12 (or is it 9 now?) apostles along the Great Ocean Road in Australia, but no where near as good. It was also difficult to take photos of them, so you will have to settle from one I prepared earlier here.

This took far longer then we thought so Jules had to do some extreme driving to get us back to the ferry terminal in time for our departure. Luckily we made it with about five minutes to spare (luckily they dont make you arrive 30 mins before hand like at airports) and we sat back to enjoy the relaxing trip back.



Southampton Docks and, in particular, SCT.



Osbore House.



More House.



and even more...



Outlying Swiss Cottage on the grounds of the house.



If you go out into the woods today you are in for a big surprise....



Last of the house.



Chalk Downland Ridge.



More Chalk Downland Ridge.



Even more Chalk Downland Ridge.



A cruise ship leaving Southampton as we were returning....