Category: Guernsey and Alderney

Channel Islands 15: Homeward Bound

The final post in my series about my holiday in the channel islands.

This post will conclude my series about my holiday in the channel islands.

A BADLY TIMED FERRY

Our ferry back to England was scheduled to depart at 13:10 (had originally been 11:10, but was put back two hours before we even went on holiday), which was a very inconvenient time in two ways – it meant that I had to travel from Poole to King’s Lynn as a car passenger rather than as I had intended doing so by public transport, and it also meant with a lot of waiting around.

A SMOOTH FERRY JOURNEY AND A SLOW CAR JOURNEY

Once we were aboard the ferry an ensconced in our seats the journey was smooth and comfortable. Poole Harbour is one of the largest natural harbours in the world, meaning that there is plenty to be seen as the boat approaches land.

The journey from Poole to King’s Lynn was slow, and it was well past 11PM by the time I got home.

PHOTOGRAPHS

Here are my pictures from that final day…

Channel Islands 14: Iron Age Burial Chamber

Continuing my account of my holiday in the channel islands with a look at Le Dehus Dolmen.

My account of my holiday in the Channel Islands has reached the final full day we spent on Guernsey.

LE DEHUS DOLMEN

Not relishing a shopping trip on the Friday morning I stayed at the hotel and caught up with my photo editing. Lunch was a picnic which we consumed in my parent’s room at that establishment. From there we set off for our last excursion of the holiday, taking a bus to the nearest point to our target that we could get to and then seeking out Le Dehus Dolmen, an ancient but very well preserved burial mound/chamber. It is not terribly well signposted and we had a couple of false starts, but we did locate it, and it was worth all the trouble (plus we saw some interesting stuff while locating it). We walked back to a point where there would be more buses, and arrived their literally at the same time as a bus heading for St Peter Port, so the return journey was pretty straightforward.

The sign to the monument.
Information board
Internal pictures (eight in total)
External shots – 13 close ups…
…and this shot showing as near complete a picture as possible.

Channel Islands 13: Occupation Museum Part Two

Continuing my account of my holiday in the channel islands by completing the story of the German Occupation Museum.

This post continues my account of my recent holiday in the channel islands. It is the second post that I dedicate to the German Occupation Museum on Guernsey.

OCCUPATION STRASSE

The main part of what is left of the museum after what I covered in the previous post is Occupation Strasse. This is a reconstruction of a Guernsey street as it was during the period of the occupation. I also bought a couple of sets of Guernsey stamps of the period as souvenirs, and we all had some refreshments from the cafe. There is a bus stop close to the museum and Guernsey has an excellent bus system, so getting back to St Peter Port was not difficult.

Here is a map showing Guernsey’s bus network:

Channel Islands 12: Occupation Museum Part One

Continuing my account of my holiday in the channel islands with the first of two posts about the occupation museum.

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in the channel islands. This is the first post about the museum dedicated to the German occupation of Guernsey between 1940 and 1945.

THE OPENING VIDEO

The museum experience starts with a video about the occupation, which is well worth watching. There are then a set of rooms full of exhibits and then separated from them by the cafe is ‘Occupation Strasse’ – a reconstruction of a street in the time of the occupation. The short video sets the scene very nicely.

A LARGE COLLECTION OF GERMAN MILITARIA

The first exhibits are large quantities of German militaria. This stuff was all genuine (I work for an auctioneer, and German military is notorious for featuring a heavy preponderance of fakes, some convincing and others utterly blatant – I would go so far as to say that if you see German militaria listed in an auction catalogue regard it as fake until and unless proved otherwise).

Channel Islands 11: Little Chapel

Today’s post looks at a serendipitous find en route to the Occupation Museum.

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in the channel islands. This post is, as the place itself was, on the way to a much more significant attraction.

SERENDIPITY

Serendipity is a word that refers to happy developments that come about by chance. It comes from the mythical island of Serendip, also rendered variously as Serendib and Sarandib, visited by Sindbad the Sailor on one of his voyages. The island most commonly equated with Sindbad’s Serendip is Sri Lanka. Our visit to the Little Chapel was a perfect example of serendipity – we were in a cab heading towards the Occupation Museum when we passed the sign for the little chapel. Once we had established that we would be able to walk from there to the museum we decided to visit the chapel.

THE LITTLE CHAPEL

The Little Chapel is indeed a little building, but there is far more inside than you would ever guess from the outside.

A first view of the Little Chapel.

Here is my full gallery…

Channel Islands 10: Farewell to Alderney

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my holiday in the channel islands. This post finishes the Alderney segment.

THE FINAL FULL DAY ON ALDERNEY

The final full day on Alderney ended up being a very quiet one – the events of Wednesday, covered in the seventh and eighth posts in this series, had taken a lot out of me and I was not up to the walk to the nearest point from which I could have looked at the gannet colony.

THE BOAT BACK TO GUERNSEY

Our boat back to Guernsey was leaving at 8AM on the Friday, so we had a taxi booked to pick us up from the fort at 7:30AM that morning. The voyage back was rougher than the voyage out had been, and we were all pretty relieved when we alighted on Guernsey.

I end this post with a final look at Fort Clonque…

Channel Islands 9: The Birds of Alderney

Continuing my account of my recent holiday in the channel islands with a special post dedicated to the birds of Alderney.

I continue my account of my recent visit to the channel islands with a special post dedicated to the birds of Alderney (the island is justly famed for its bird life).

TWO MISSES

It was too early in the year for boat trips to be running to the island of Burhou, just off the coast of Alderney to the north, and home to puffins (it has no human residents at all), and Wednesday took so much out of me that on the Thursday I was unable to face to fairly steep and fairly rough path that would have started the walk towards a point from which I could view the gannet colony. Here a few maps…

THE BIRDS I DID SEE

Although I missed two great ornithological sites for different reasons, I still saw a fine range of birds during my few days on Alderney…

I spotted this one (and took the picture) through the window of the taxi taking us to the harbour to catch the boat back to Guernsey.

I end this little post with a view of Fort Clonque:

Channel Islands 8: Exploring Alderney – Roman Fort and Home

Continuing my account of my holiday in the channel islands. The main feature of today’s post is Alderney’s Roman Fort.

Welcome to the latest installment in my series about my recent holiday in the channel islands. Today we look at the second half of Wednesday’s explorations.

THE ROMAN FORT

The Roman fort is well preserved although there is also a considerable amount of stuff there relating to the German occupation. Admission is free, and there is a detailed plan just inside. Why only one Roman fort when the Victorians deemed the island worthy of 18? The Romans controlled the English Channel in its entirety, so no hostile power could have used these any of these islands as a base from which to attack them – the main danger to Rome would have been pirates looking to base fleets there.

THE REST OF THE WALK

We now headed back on a long circuit towards Braye. We saw some more forts, and when we hit a road once again a taxi was called, four of the five of us electing to get home that way while my sister chose to keep walking. Before I share a general gallery, this is the image that now forms my desktop background:

Now for the general gallery…

Now it is time to sign off with a view of Fort Clonque:

This shot was taken from distance.

Channel Islands 7: Exploring Alderney – Before Lunch

Continuing my account of my holiday in the Channel Islands.

We are up to Wednesday March 23 in my account of my holiday in the channel islands. I have decided to divide this day’s events into two as I have so much to share. Here to help you orient yourselves are a couple of maps of Alderney (click to view at full size):

FORT CLONQUE TO BRAYE

This part of the walk was the reverse of the walk to the fort on the Monday, but this time we were doing it in full daylight, whereas it had been getting dark by the time we arrived on the island on the Monday.

BRAYE TO THE CROSSING OF THE ISLAND

In view of where the most interesting sites were, and where we planned to have lunch we had decided to cut off a loop of the footpath in the first instance and then circuit back. This leg of the journey included a spell close to the Alderney Railway.

UP TO LUNCH

Our route to the place we were having lunch took us past the entrance to the Roman fort which was to be our first port of call after lunch. The lunch was really excellent, and in my case included a local beer (brewed on Guernsey – Alderney is not big enough to have its own brewery) called Patois (French for ‘slang’).

A distant view of Essex Castle

I end as usual with a view of Fort Clonque:

Channel Islands 6: St Anne

A visit to St Anne, as I continue my account of my recent office.

As I continue my account of my holiday (18th-27th March), this is the first post solely dedicated to Alderney.

EXPLORING ST ANNE

On our first full day on Alderney, the Tuesday, we set out to visit St Anne, the only town on the island. Our departure was delayed by the necessity of waiting for a high tide to go down. As was the case through this holiday we were blessed with excellent weather.

There was much to see on the way to the town:

The town itself was quite an interesting place, and the information office was very useful.

We walked back the same way we had come.

It was even pleasant enough to eat outside.
Guernsey (and hence Alderney) still uses £1 notes.

All photographs in this post can be seen at full size by clicking on them, but we end with a view of the fort: