Fisherman's Cottage

We've explored the East of the island today, starting off at Shanklin Chine which is a natural gorge dating back to the 18th century.  It's kind of like walking into a rain forest, with waterfalls and very tall trees, it's nice but a lot smaller than I imagined, and although they say there's wildlife in there, we didn't see anything other than a very tame blackbird in the tea garden, and a couple of Jays.  I was very pleased to see the Jays as they're a bird that I've been wanting to capture, but they were in the trees and the light wasn't great so the images aren't very sharp.

We walked into the old village of Shanklin and had a look round and then walked down to the beach where we had lunch at Fisherman's Cottage. It dates back to 1817 and is now a pub which was very busy but we managed to find a table and had lunch sat on the terrace overlooking the beach.

From here we drove to Bembridge Windmill which is a National Trust property, and after climbing to the top of the mill, we drove to the beach where the RNLI lifeboat station is out at sea, and approached by a long walkway.  Through the summer they're open to visitors every day, so we went to have a look at the lifeboat - what a great job they do!

Our next port of call was St Helens Duver which also belongs to the National Trust.  When you arrive you walk through the sand dunes and come out on a rather busy beach which really isn't what we expected, but it was very nice with a little estuary leading to the sea, so there's lots of sailing boats and paddle boarders.

Once we'd finished here, we headed home and went to sit on the beach with a bottle of Leffe beer to share.  The sun was shining so it was quite relaxing and we both enjoyed beach combing for flat pebbles for Kate to use in her pebble art - we found quite a few! The rest of the evening has been spent in the cottage - I've done the packing as we have to check out by 10am tomorrow, although we’ve still got the day here as our ferry back isn’t until 4pm.