G & J away from home

Thursday, 10 June 2016

This morning our group split into three parts - me with a morning at home and Beth, Gary and Marianne setting out on the busses to visit the German Occupation museum (Beth and Gary) and walk down to Petit Bot Bay (Marianne).

As we have found a few times in Guernsey, the directions to places are a bit understated for people who are unfamiliar with the area but with the help of a local lady who had been here during the occupation they found the museum.

Beth getting a first-hand account

The German Occupation Museum

The German Occupation museum is owned and operated by a man who began collecting items as a schoolboy and it has grown and grown since it was first given a home in 1966.

Marianne found her walk to Petit Bot Bay steeper than expected and the bay very small but it made for some lovely photos.

Everybody came home for lunch (and biscuits, of which we have a truly magnificent selection) before Beth, Marianne, and I headed out for our great adventure crossing the tidal causeway to  Lihou Island.

There was a waving of hands, and then they were off. Up Mansel Street at this early hour�it was only half-past eight�comparatively quiet, though later in the day it would be a busy scene with carts and horses, buses and lorries; then through quiet residential terraces till they emerged from the town, to run through narrow lanes with tall trees forming arches overhead, through which the bright sunshine dappled the white road, and hedges, green with blackberry and may bushes, on either side; past long rows of glass-houses that glittered brightly in the light; past gaunt, whitewashed houses and happy farm-houses; through Le For�t, where the gardens showed enormous red-hot pokers and hydrangea bushes that rose to the roofs of the houses, and busy housewives were hard at work; and, so down the St Pierre du Bois road till they saw the sea lying ahead of them, sparkling with a thousand diamonds, and L�Er�e Hotel, standing guard at the corner where the road runs into the Rocquaine road that skirts the beautiful sweep of Rocquaine Bay.

Janie greeted each familiar landmark with a whoop of joy and looked eagerly towards the tiny Lihou Island, with its ruined chapel, dedicated to Ste Marie Lihou. �Remember how we played "ghosts" there in our unregenerate days?' she asked her husband laughingly.

'And the boat went adrift, and you girls had to walk home by the road at four o'clock in the morning!' he supplemented. �I should just think so!�

Mr Lucy, from the back seat, chuckled. 'You were wicked children,' he said. 'You might have scared all the inhabitants from the neighbourhood.'

'Oh, an extra ghost or two means nothing to them,' said Janie airily. 'Go slowly, Julian. I want to see things.'

He slowed down, and they went at little more than walking pace along the road, till suddenly Julian stopped the car. Janie turned her eyes from the lovely bay to the group of cottages at the other side of the road, and a soft colour stained her cheeks. 'Home at last,' she said. She opened the door, and jumped out.

-- Janie of La Rochelle by Elinor Brent-Dyer

We set off with water / mud / rock walking shoes, shoes to change into, towels, rain coats (in case the sea fog got us) and an agreement that if it looked un-do-able, or even unpleasant, we would opt out of walking across the causeway.  The crossing is only open during specific times (low tide, obviously, and never at night) so we had from about 2.30 to 5pm to get the 20-minute one way crossing in.  We wanted to have a little while to walk around the island and find the ruins of the priory where the youngsters had played at 'ghosts'.

In fact the causeway looked like quite an easy task, and so it turned out.

Marianne and Beth as we set out

Sometimes it was a little slippery underfoot but not so much so that we ever felt like we were going to land on our backsides (which I had already done when I jumped down off a low wall during the walk to the causeway).

The walk required a little bit of care and, in retrospect, was probably better done in closed shoes like Marianne's - not for the actual causeway walking, but on the climb out at Lihou Island where it was pebbly and then sandy underfoot and our sandals quickly filled up with rubble!

The causeway and rock pools

Could anybody have walked it?  Perhaps not somebody who was uncertain of their balance (like using a walking stick or a walker!) but almost anybody else could have - something we were unable to ascertain before we arrived there and checked it for ourselves.  All feet got wet, though, so if opting for enclosed shoes they had better be ones that don't mind a good soaking.

Marianne celebrates our arrival on the island

Marianne and I walked on to find the priory (only about 5 minutes walk away) and take some photos back over Rocquaine Bay.  Marianne seemed reluctant to let me photograph her playing ghosts but obligingly made ghostly noises as a tribute to the (fictional) children who had once played there.

Ruins of the priory

Not being quite as well-read (either of the books or the locations resources) I wasn't aware until I was researching this post that the houses we were looking back at across the bay were the likely location of the 'La Rochelle' cottage.

Approximate location of 'La Rochelle'

We returned across the causeway in good time, giving ourselves a GOLD STAR for this location visit (usually a mere TICK is the award for making a children's fiction connection with a place or activity) as the frequency with which being cut off by the tide is used in children's fiction makes this more than just an Elinor Brent-Dyer location.  That we weren't cut off by the tide, nor even remotely threatened by it, hardly matters; it's the thought that counts.

Beth celebrates the return crossing

We did sit overlooking the causeway for a while in the hope that the tide would rush in but, alas, it was not going to do anything so dramatic though the view was lovely and it was nice to sit in the sun and (eventually) change into our dry shoes.

View out to sea from our vantage point

 Eventually, when the tide refused to co-operate, we headed back toward the L'Eree bus stop, hoping to catch the 91 (direct route home) or 61 (back to St Peter Port, known as 'Town').  We could see a bus pulling out from the stop and sent Marianne on to wave it down.  It was a 61, driven by our most entertaining bus driver, 'George'.  He not only stopped the bus but stopped a couple of times to give Marianne opportunities to take photos of the very narrow, stone-walled lanes the bus navigates across the island.

When the bus meets oncoming traffic it simply mounts the footpath and carries on with very little loss of speed.  'We share', George informed us happily as we lurched up and down curbs.  In many countries the slogan is Share the Road, apparently in Guernsey it's Share the Footpath.

Not exactly part of the UK, but having very close ties

Reading: Icefire by Chris d'Lacey (Jane)

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