Chasing Salmon in Laxey

Laxey is a picturesque, former mining village whose name, derives from the Norse word for salmon.

Therefore, I suppose it made sense when it was decided to create three walks around the village to call them the Salmon Walks and they are colour coded as to their degree of length (10k or 6.2 miles, 7k or 4 miles, 3k or 2 miles) and difficulty.

There is a leaflet produced by the Laxey Commissioners (Commissioners are Manx local government organisations elected by the people of the towns/villages usually taking care of parks, public housing, street lighting etc. Only Douglas is a corporation with a town council,) that can be picked up from, Tourist Information Centre.

It is written by local historian and Blue Badge Guide, Frank Cowin, shows the routes and also points out any places of interest that you may encounter along the way.

On the day that we decided finally to explore them, Irene hadn't been too well the previous day and the weather was looking as though it might break, so we chose to do part of the most difficult one.

They are circular, so you can choose to pick them up where you please but the start of the blue and the red walks are only a 200 yards from the aforementioned TIC, so quite handy really.

Our journey began by taking the short cut onto the Baldhoon Road, across the tram tracks and by the Snaefell Mountain Railway sheds. This area is pretty hilly and we trudged up the steep hill towards Glen Ruy. It has to be said that the Salmon Walks at this stage are not particularly well signed, so be careful not to miss the turn down to Axnfell which is a public footpath just after the house with the small wind turbine (don't worry there isn't a big one but I didn't want to confuse it with one of the huge white monstrosities.)

It is fairly steep descent and difficult underfoot, so this path isn't for everyone but eventually you get to a white bridge across the river. By this time, our fears about the weather had proved totally mistaken and the sun was beating down.

There is a very pretty trail that brings you to Laxey Glen, then you cross New Road (the Village's main road) and then back down to rejoin the river.

I 'm not sure what led me to choose this route but amazingly having stopped for refreshment earlier at the Queens Hotel, we had now found ourselves in the car park of the Shore Hotel, a pub complete with its own micro-brewery.

Such was the beauty of the day, we were able to sit by the river and watch the ducks play.

We actually became impromptu marshals for the 'Lighthouse Challenge,' a cycle race which took the athletes around the length and breadth of the Island. Unfortunately, some wally had pinched the sign (more IOM navigational problems!) directing them to the the pier, so from the luxury of our pub table, we were shouting instructions to stop them whizzing past the turn off.

For a small village, Laxey is actually quite spread out, so the Commissioners in association with Bus Vannin are now providing a hopper bus that runs every half an hour. On this occasion, we hadn't quite had enough to drink to necessitate using it, though we had had enough to leave the rest of the walk for another day, so we walked back up Glen Road to catch our bus home.