Meayll Peninsula

Following up on my recommendation to a couple of our guests on Saturday, yesterday Irene & I decided to walk around the tip of the Meayll Peninsula.

Leaving glorious sunshine in Douglas, we became a little apprehensive as a haze seemed to be shrouding the Island somewhat but we ignored the advice of the Met Man (09006243200 gets you speaking to a real life meteorologist, so for the 50p price of a phone call, I often ring before heading out as the weather around the Isle of Man can be very diffferent) to perhaps look at hitting the high ground and pressed on to the south west.

To save time, we had taken the car but this walk is easily completed by using either bus or steam train. We parked on the Truggan Road on the outskirts of Port St Mary and walked into Port Erin, taking the Raad-Ny-Foillan (Literal translation: Road of the Gull, the Island's coastal path marked with pictures of a white gull on a blue background) which you can pick up just behind the red brick former Marine Biological Centre building.

It's a real lung-buster to start the walk proper but well worth it as already you have a view of the whole village of Port Erin, the hills surrounding and also Bay-Ny-Carrickey to the north. From a skeet angle, you also get to overlook Ballaman, the house built, complete with contrversal windbreak and pond by Nigel Mansell, the former world champion racing driver when he was resident here.

We certainly weren't hanging around and it took us under 45 minutes to get from Port Erin to the Sound but if you prefer to travel at a more leisurely pace, you may be as well allowing over an hour to an hour and a quarter. There are some places where it is quite challenging and others where the ground is littered with loose stone, so you would want to have reasonable levels of fitness and stability before attempting it.

We saw lots of choughs and gulls, though often you'd get a greater variety of bird than we saw yesterday and it is running over and alongside farmland, so there are usually domestic animals too.

The nearest point to the Calf, the island just a few hundred yards away is the Calf Sound and there is a cafe there, serving anything from snacks up to a full meal but as we had not long since had our breakfast, a coffee and a glass of water sufficed. Mind you if you are contemplating a large lunch and then walking to along the Raad-ny-Foillan to Port St Mary, it may be worth remembering how steep the hill is about 10 minutes into the journey. This always reminds me of two occasions when we have walked the other way. The first was meeting two elderly ladies with sticks just after there and wondering how on earth they'd ascended it and the second was one time when our youngest son Terence must have been about 8 years old and was in the middle of telling us how brilliant he was goijng downhill when he went splat! and ended up covered in mud from head to toe.

Even with the dry weather we've experienced lately, it was still a little wet there but we managed to avoid Terence's fate. This part of the journey took us over an hour but we hugged the coast pretty closely and there are shortcuts. Dramatic scenery includes Sugarloaf Roack, Spanish Head and with a short detour, The Chasms, before you pass the golf course, Perwick Bay and then come into Port St Mary itself.

The sunshine followed us all the way, despite our initial misgivings and even to the garden outside the Bay View Hotel where we had a couple of 'lemonades' to replenish after our exertions.