May 24: Guernesy Island: staying close to home

Previous: May 23

Today's goal was to wind down with a shortish, not too strenuous, hike, that would let us fit in something touristy before were turn to Kingston. Since the hike was intended to be shortish, we were in no hurry getting started. We began our day with the consistently tasty cooked breakfast, but arrived for breakfast almost an hour later than usual after dawdling around before leaving the bedroom. Sleeping in is always a luxury, but we tend not to indulge in it while on vacation on the logic that if we're paying so much money to get here, we should do as much touristing as possible. We're sort of past that now, and being more reasonable about what we can fit into a single day.

After packing the usual supplies (mostly water and sun block) to get us through the first part of the day, we headed out the hotel's door around noon, traveled a short distance down the main road, then turned south onto one of the ruelles tranquilles that ran downhill to the sea. There was only a short walk through one of the local residential areas, then we were on mostly unpaved dirt trails besided a paced road for cars under an arching canopy of forest with a trickling stream running alongside the trail. The shade was nice, but there was little breeze, warning that it was going to get quite hot later. It was originally predicted to be in the high teens or low 20s, but hit 26°C by the time I sat down to write this. That's well outside my usual tolerable temperature range.

The trail to Petit Pôt Bay:

At the bottom of the hill, we reached Petit Bôt Bay. So far as I can tell, that's an old French spelling for botte = boot, although the bay isn't obviously boot-shaped. It's considered one of Guernsey's hidden-treasure beaches, since it's a bit off the beaten path, but has beautiful cliffs surrounding it. At low tide, there's supposedly an extensive stretch of sand reached by crossing (carefully!) an upper beach composed of large rounded cobbles ranging in size from potatoes or melon halves down to smaller gravel. It lies in the middle of a wooded valley that's quite lovely on a sunny day like today.

The shore, seen from some distance down the trail (the sandy part of the beach mostly submerged):

It also has a lovely tea shop right before you get onto the beach. Did I mention how nice a change it is to be hiking in a civilized country?

In a previous hike, we'd reached guard tower 14 (Saints Bay) coming from the west along the southern coast, and wanted a short hike today to close the gap between that tower and tower 13 at Petit Bôt Bay. We knew this was a bit of a risk, as the previous hike had been exhausting and there were high ridges between us and the rest of the hike. And the inevitable consquence of walking a long distance downhill is that at some point you're going to have to travel the same distance uphill when you return to your starting point. (Let's call this "Hart's law of conservation of knees". If you want to conserve your knees for future use, avoid such slopes.)

We'd descended in the center of the valley, so we began our ascent of the west side which was, as expected, steep and covered by stairs. (As I'd feared. A good villain, like Guernsey's endless stairways in this case, is an asset to any tale of adventure. Just when you think you've evaded their clutch...) Fortunately, the path zigzagged up the slope, which reduced the strain on the knees, but there were several unmarked spur trails that took us away from the main path and forced us to retrace our steps. (Cell phone GPS receivers aren't as good as commercial units, so positioning accuracy significantly degrades when you're under tree cover and surrounded by fields of ferns.) Beautiful views, but not conducive to our larger goal of reaching the Saints Bay tower and completing our hike of almost the whole southwestern coast.

On the plus side, we encountered a small pheasant family, with dad, mom, and a handful of babies, who fled into the underbrush surrounding the trail. We also saw them on the way back, but they moved too fast to get a picture.

By the time we reached the first major headland, it was clear we weren't going to reach our destination or even a reasonable midway point, like the charmingly named Les Sommeilleuses ("the sleepers") tower. It was simply too hot, and even though we'd brought a reasonable amount of water, we were sweating furiously. And we were spending about as much time in the open, roasting under the sun, as we were spending in woodland under shade. We decided to call it a day, as we didn't know how long it would take to reach the next stopping point with water and other facilities. Instead, we retraced our path. (General rule of hiking where you've never been before: your starting point is a known quantity, and it's always safer to return to that point than to aim for some point that will take an unknown time to reach, with uncertainty over whether water or even easy access to a bus will be available.)

We made it back to Petit Bôt by early afternoon, and had a small snack to console us, not to mention rehydrate us: a marguerita (tomato and cheese) pizza fit for two, and a pint of San Miguel ale. Beer, of course, is purely for medicinal purposes, as it dilates the blood vessels and helps you cool down. For dessert, I had a coffee full-fat ice cream cone, which was lovely, while Shoshanna waded through the beach water. Direct quote (based on a conspicuous lack of surf frolicking in a previous Hawaii vacation): "I shall frolic in the god-damned surf!"

Shoshana frolics:

The walk uphill through the forest was strenuous, but we made it safely home and collapsed. Madame is pondering returning to the bay tomorrow to frolic with an actual bathing suit so that she could swim, but given that it's going to be even hotter tomorrow, we may just park ourselves in the hotel's back yard with cool drinks and get caught up on our reading. That would be a sensible way to transition back to our normal post-vacation life.

Dinner will be at The Deerhound again tonight, since there's no way we're gonna walk any farther than that. Plus, they have good food, most of which we haven't yet sampled, and good beer on draft. What more could a tourist want?

An air conditioner, for one thing. It rarely gets seriously hot in the Channel Islands, so most people seem not to bother installing air conditioning. We slept with the windows open last night, which was OK. Interestingly, windows don't always have screens, since the airborne bug quota is far lower than in North America.

Forgot to mention one of the more entertaining street names we spotted on our way to the Rocquette cider farm: the Rue Sans Un Nom (paradoxically," the street without a name", which is its registered name).

Next: May 25