A Walker’s Journal by Anthony Linick
Approaching Le Petit Port
The Jersey Coastal Walk can be considered part of a larger enterprise – the Channel Islands Way. The latter, which also includes walking on Guernsey, Alderney, Herm and Sark, is listed at 110 miles in total – and will involve a lot of movement by boat between these sites. The Jersey Coastal Walk itself is listed at some 50 miles and, with my sister- and brother-in-law I completed this island circuit in 2013 – in five days of walking.
As will become evident in the accounts that follow, the route in question is only a route and not a continuous waymarked footpath. For this reason I suspect that a good deal of improvisation takes place – do I need to round that peninsula, what happens if I cut off that headland? A good Jersey map (and there are many on offer) – one that shows footpaths with dotted lines for instance, would seem essential. We used the Insight Flexi Map of Jersey and the island’s version of an Ordnance Survey Map, the Official Leisure Map. The guidebook provided by our tour organizers, Celtic Trails, was Paddy Dillon’s volume – published by Cicerone. It offered a series of circular walks, most of which had a coastal section – but it was often hard to figure out where we were in the next chapter. Under any circumstance, if you start at St. Helier and head west you will only need to keep the sea of your left and you will not go wrong for long. I found the Jersey Coastal Walk even more lovely and picturesque than its Guernsey equivalent – though it was a bit more strenuous, with a number of steep stretches up and down the cliff faces. You can always let me know how you got on by using the Contact Page.
Our organizers had taxis pick us up at the end of our walk each day and these brought us back to the same spot the next day – with all of our nights spent in the same hotel in St. Helier. The island also publishes a downloadable version of its complete bus schedule at http://www.libertybus.je. I think it would be possible to change accommodation each night – but this would require some homework on your part. If you are new to the walking enterprise or looking for advice on how to get started with such bookings you will find appropriate information in my book, A Walker’s Alphabet: Adventures on the Long-distance Footpaths of Great Britain – published in 2010 and available from the publisher at www.authorhouse.co.uk or from www.authorhouse.com or from www.amazon.co.uk or from www.amazon.com.
Our stages were as follows:
Day 1: St. Helier to Corbière – 11 miles
Day 2: Corbière to Plémont – 10 miles
Day 3: Plémont to Bonne Nuit – 10 miles