Thrifty MummyHen

Holiday - Day 3 & Day 4

Alderney is tiny 3 miles by 1.5 miles we've not visited before.  A tiny tiny 12 seater plane which flies at 1,000 feet, we're only going for 1 night so just took hand luggage, remembering the liquid allowance (that is such a pain in domestic flights).  

After 15 minutes we landed in Alderney, we hadn't booked a taxi as its only a couple of miles walk to the hotel, but a taxi waiting, a really friendly chap took us to our hotel in Braye, and we arranged our return trip the next days and to our surprise didn't want paying!! We could settle up on the return trip - that wouldn't happen at home. 

Hotel room is very comfortable, clean, lovely view of the bay we dropped our bags off and set off for a walk.  Up the hill into St Ann with its cobbled street

and quaint shops - I found a wool shop (DaddyHen thinks I have a built in wool shop finder whereever we go).  And yellow phone boxes.

On we walked passed the airport onwards towards Fort Clonque down Zig-Zag.  

 

The Germans arrived in 1940 and there is plenty of evidence of their presence horrid square concrete bunkers. The hedgerows were full of blackberries, wild honeysuckle and fushias, heather, lots of unnamed flowers - I must buy a book to take in our walks.

The islands just of Alderney are home to thousands of gannets, so much so they have turned the island white

There was a promise of a pint or two at the end of our walk so onwards we went. We arrived back exhausted just as the wind got up and the skies turned dark. Tomorrow we would walk to the north of the island.  Dinner was excellent.  

I didn't sleep to well as a gale was blowing - the noise was something else.  The rain came down in buckets, actually horizontal buckets. OMG would we have spend another night on Alderney, would our flight be cancelled!  A quick check on the guernsey airport site, flights seem to be going albeit a little delayed. Unfortunately our walk would have to be cancelled, the wind and rain was awful and now the visibility was very poor.   The hotel has its own cinema so the manager arrange a film and all 20 seats (comfy armchairs) were all taken.  Sadly no walk but we got back to Guernsey on Joey later in the afternoon after the rain and the visibilty had improved.

 MummyHen X