June 23, 2013: St. Helier to Corbièr
I stand with Elizabeth Castle in the background.
The summer walking season for 2013 started for me at 10:15 on a gray Saturday morning when a cab arrived to take me to Victoria Station. This was a fairly rapid journey and, with the assistance of an efficient guard, I had soon purchased my round trip ticket on the Gatwick Express. I was carrying my suitcase (day pack on my back) but I didn’t have very far to lug this object, once arrived at Gatwick, for the check-in desk for FlyBe Airlines is just inside the door of the south terminal. Now I had an hour or so before boarding, just before noon, my flight to Jersey. Having enjoyed their first experience with this rambling jaunt my sister-in-law Naomi and my brother-in-law Adrian had chosen to follow up last year’s successful conquest of the Guernsey Coastal Walk with its natural sequel, The Jersey Coast Walk. They had been in France for some time and had, presumably, arrived already in St. Helier on an early morning ferry from Saint-Malo.
We sat for a long time without moving from our departure gate since there was evidently some problem with the luggage – either one case missing or one case too many – and this required a thorough investigation of the hold before we were cleared to go. We were only airborne for thirty-five minutes or so. I was a bit worried about the pick-up cab ordered by the ever-efficient Celtic Trails because we were half an hour late and it did take quite some time for the luggage belt to begin its work – but my case was almost the first one out and, sure enough, there was a driver holding up a sign (Dr. Linic) as I made my exit. On the drive to the Jersey Savoy Hotel (our headquarters for the entire experience) I learned on the car radio that, had we been here one day earlier, we would have had to complete for path space with hundreds of walkers and runners, trying to complete a round-island trip, one that would take us five days, in a single outing. Many of these charity fundraisers were now being interviewed by BBC Jersey.
I was also learning that traffic can be a problem on this island but eventually we arrived at our hotel and I completed the check-in process. I could tell already that this was a superior establishment, easily the poshest place of rest ever enjoyed during a walk – for which I was grateful indeed. I also discovered that Naomi and Adrian were already in their room, next to mine on the first floor, and I was soon knocking on their door. I unpacked and then we went downstairs for a drink in the bar and, still later, we hit the streets in search of an evening meal. The trendy Ad Lib restaurant couldn’t take us so we decided to try the Casa Velha at the end of our street, Le Rouge Bouillion.
The Velha, which also did takeaway, was a Portuguese restaurant and we soon learned that Jersey has a large Portuguese population; indeed we were in a Portuguese enclave here. The food was quite good and plentiful and we had some wine as well. Gradually the place filled up with guests well-known to our enterprising hostess. Outside, incidentally, there was a terrific wind tossing about all the flowers of the nearby park and we were a bit chilly as we made our way home. The wind was also unsettling my room, with doors rattling and pipes sighing – matters improved after I closed a bathroom window. It took me a while to get to sleep; I kept turning on the lights to do some more reading – but the bedside lights were evidently designed by someone who didn’t or couldn’t read.
And so Sunday, June 23, dawned at last, a wet, gray morning that did not seem to augur well for a full day on the trail. At 8:00 exactly my relatives knocked on my door and we descended to the very large breakfast room – where all sorts of goodies were laid out to get us started, breads, juices, cheeses, fruit, cereal, yogurt, and with coffee and any cooked items brought to our table by the efficient staff. Adrian made do with the cold provender behind us but Naomi always ordered soft-boiled eggs (she was getting over a major stomach upset) and I had my traditional scrambled eggs on toast. Then we retuned to our rooms and made final preparations.
I put on my walking trousers and my rain jacket (more against the cold wind than any moisture in the air) and stuffed the folded ordnance survey map into a new map case – my old one was used by Adrian. Celtic Trails, which supplied everything in duplicate, had sent us copies of Paddy Dillon’s Cicerone Walking on Jersey guidebook. I had already purchased a copy so I took the latter apart – so that I would only have to deal with the day’s relevant pages. They floated around in my map case and I found this to be very annoying so I usually kept them folded in a front pocket. More annoying was the format of the text – a series of circular walks with only certain sections of each chapter actually relevant to coastal walking. This meant that you often had to figure out where the continuation of the route could be found in the next chapter – and then the information was often deficient anyway.
It was exactly 9:00 when we departed the steps of our hotel (“before” pictures behind snapped away) and headed back to last night’s restaurant. A continuation down Kensington Place (which proved to be a kind of restaurant row) brought us down to the seaside highway – where we were greeted by a howling wind. Traffic lights helped us across the street and onto an esplanade above the beach itself. Near at hand was a boat-shaped restaurant and in the background we had Elizabeth Castle – which the others planned to visit after our walk, utilizing an amphibious vehicle parked in front of us. Visibility was not great, the castle looming out of the gloom, but clouds were lifting and we could already see the full extent of St. Aubin’s Bay stretching around to the left in front of us.
I took a lot of pictures on this opening day: a meeting of local Greyhound enthusiasts, a characteristic Jersey yellow telephone box, and the first of many round tours – this one across the highway. Eventually we got up a rhythm, with Adrian well out in front of us and Naomi just in front of me. This year these two had made one strategic addition to their outfits – each carried one walking pole and they found these objects to be very useful indeed. Gradually the crowds thinned and we had the esplanade to ourselves – though cyclists also had a lane here and there were joggers about as well. On the shore below we noted many people out with their dogs – I know of many a UK beach where there would be a ban on canine activity at this time of year.
As on Guernsey Adrian soon found a number of ways of indulging his interest in military history and as we neared St. Aubin itself he declared a desire to visit its fort, connected to the mainland by a causeway. While he did so Naomi and I agreed to have a coffee at one of the many seaside cafés hereabouts and this turned out to be a leisurely enterprise since Adrian was gone a long time. (He hadn’t calculated on wading across the harbor outlet before reaching the causeway.) I was not too bothered by such delays on this trip since our instructions were to call for a taxi ride home only when we had reached the end of the day, no one was waiting for us to return for a meal, and we had the maximum amount of daylight available for late walking. I used the opportunity of this pause to take off my rain jacket – I never wore it again on this trip – but Naomi and Adrian, far more sensitive to chill than I was, usually wore their raingear in all weathers.
After walking round the seafront of St. Aubin village we turned our backs on the sea at the Royal Channel Islands Yacht Club and used roads to climb quite steeply onto the adjacent headland. (All of the street names were again in French.) I must say that, in spite of the angle of ascent, the surroundings were richly beautiful, with flowers, both cultivated and wild, providing a spectacular display. At Les Bailhaches we left roadway altogether for some real footpath, mostly level, through woodland – a fence on the left helping us find out way. Eventually we reached more exposed countryside, with heather, bracken and gorse dominant, and quite a few military fortifications in evidence on Noirmont itself. We had quite an extensive look at all the redundant firepower – a nearby car park was bringing lots of tourists to this place and one chocolate Lab got confused and loped up the road to the next emplacement while a frustrated owner followed at a trot.
Old Portelet Inn
We took to a road inland and then veered off on another path, one which lead us through low vegetation (with views into Portelet Bay on our left) to Portelet itself and the spot I had chosen as our lunchtime refuge, the Old Portelet Inn. It was just going 1:00 and we had reached the halfway mark of the day’s walk. The place was crowded as well, but we found a table upstairs and I had a pint of lager and one of those hamburgers so huge that, even sliced in half, it seemed unlikely that it could be gripped by human hands. (Adrian always began each meal by trying to find some local product and I think he did consume a red cider-based drink here.) The old inn with its surrounding foliage was charming indeed and we enjoyed an hour’s break here – but at 2:00 or so it was time to move on.
The guidebook mentions two options here and, not knowing the state of the tides, we used a roadway that dropped below the pub to get us moving back inland as far as the Portelet Hotel. Thereafter we continue on a road that passed a gate – where a shaggy dog came forward to stick his nose out for a scratch, the sign on the gate reading “Benson Lives Here. Please help us keep him at home by Closing The Gate.” We continued forward for a while and then turned to our left to walk out to another headland. We were looking for a gate in a stone wall and the first one we reached was locked so we had to slope off to our right and here the right gate was found. A dad was showing his little boys the local ant population and Adrian suggested that if they followed the ant trail themselves they might find the insects gorging on a dead body.
We had a little circular walk on Le Portelet headland and then returned to the gate in the stone wall – with paths now taking us above the cliffs of the next great ocean inlet, St. Brelade’s Bay. The sun was shining brightly now and I have to say it was our constant accompaniment for the rest of our Jersey walk – a very gratifying situation.
Naomi and Adrian in the quarry above St. Brelade’s Bay.
Instructions in the guidebook asked us to pass a cottage and to look for steps at the head of a steep descent. This brought us into the confines of an old quarry but the twisting path now deposited us on the rocks guarding the beach at Ouaisné. This was a very difficult moment for us since, to reach the sands, we had to scramble across the rocks themselves. I suppose it was a godsend that we had our sticks to provide some leverage but Naomi accomplished the task very slowly and I fell backwards twice, once injuring my left elbow and the back of my left forearm. It was with some relief that we reached the sands themselves and began a circuit of the bay.
There was good purchase on the wetter portions of the sand and we made good progress as far as the St. Brelade’s Parish Church, where again we turned out back on the sea – climbing up through the many gravestones to a roadway. We were again approaching an exposed headland where footpaths lead us out to a high point – with views in every direction. In the late afternoon sunlight the view of the ocean through the trees and the sight of the waves crashing into the cliffs below was exhilarating. We reached La Grosse Tête on our weary legs and began a last hour or so of walking amid fields and along footpaths and roads.
An inland section took us past Jersey’s prison and out through La Lande du Ouest, where the rusting machinery of a desalination plant blocked the way. Ahead, looking into the lowering sun itself, we would make out the famous La Corbière lighthouse and a German observation tower. Unfortunately there was now a lot of up and down, often utilizing steps, as we completed our last mile. We had to climb up beside the rails of an abandoned tramway and then drop down again below the Highlands Hotel. The latter, however, seemed like a suitable place for a taxi rendezvous so we climbed up some steps to reach this spot, arriving after a tiring eleven-mile day at 6:00.
Adrian found a hotel brochure that said that evangelical Christians had purchased this place but there was still a bar open to non-residents and while someone called Citicabs I settled into a welcome gin and tonic. Only now was it observed that on one of my falls onto the rocks at Ouaisné I had ripped a jagged hole in the seat of my trousers! Meanwhile Adrian, out of his rain jacket at last, revealed that the back of the dress shirt, in which he did most of his walking, was soaked through with perspiration. It didn’t take too long for our cab to arrive and we were soon speeding back to St. Helier – a walk like this, with all the taxi rides, was certainly giving us plenty of opportunity to see parts of the island not reached on foot.
Because we were so tired I suggested that rather than head for restaurant row we should see if they could seat us in the hotel restaurant and this is what now happened. We had a very nice meal, again with lots of food, and as night at last fell we repaired to our rooms for a well-deserved rest. My last act was to hand my sewing kit and my trousers to my sister-in-law – “Whatever your skills in this department they are bound to be superior to mine.”
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