Isle of Wight Run #1

IoW run

Day 1 (6th July 2013): Cowleaze Chine – Shanklin (14 miles)

5.30am alarm! On holiday!!! Cripes. The campervan is broken and the AA man is called to fix it. Fixed. Coffee and bagels for the road....holiday time!

Take the ferry from Southampton over to Cowes and then drive to the south of the island to the campsite at Cowleaze Chine. Amazing camping spot by the cliff edge! Refuel with coffee and fruit and nuts then set off on run number 1....

First impression = harder than it looks! A chine, I soon discover, are the bits that go in and out all along the coast, making the route along the cliffs much further than it looks from a quick glance at the map. And they go up and down. And I’m hungry, and it’s hot, and I’m tired, and we’ve only done 4 miles and there are 63 left. How will I do this?! The first afternoon is spent in a deep despair.

On the plus side, the scenery is really very pretty. Blue seas and blue skies and the sun beating down on the cliff tops we are running along. We reach Blackgang Chine where some of the houses have fallen away into the sea where the cliffs are crumbling. Took a wrong turn and climbed carefully through a barbed wire fence, and then was bitten by a horsefly on the other side. I’m allergic to horseflies, so now my hand will swell up. My, this is going great. Soon reached the top of the cliff at St Catherine’ Point where you can see back along all of the south coast of the island, which momentarily cheered me up. And definitely now we’ve reached the top of a cliff it must go down for a bit. Right? Then we reached Niton and according to the map it said we’d only run 6 miles, which definitely is wrong, because I’m done for already and can’t run another step.

No, the map is right, so better get on with it. Come on cliffs! At the top of the next one there is a reward of Ventnor Botanic Gardens, which is shady and cool, and is like the Botanical Gardens we used to go to with my Auntie in Southport, but a slightly more exotic location. From Ventnor we followed the sea wall to Bonchurch. Wish the sea wall went around the whole island, much better than these cliffs. Cliffs won out after a mile though, and we climbed through some tiny streets to an ancient church, and took another wrong turn a climbed another hill for NO REASON! Then we made it to Luccombe village and got lost again in a field, and gave up in Shanklin where we rehydrated with cool water and chocolate milk, an ice cream and hailed a cab from surely the most anxious taxi driver in the world, who needed a minute to ‘restart’ his heart after Andrew approached to ask for a lift. Anyway, after his heart started ticking again, we headed back to the campsite. Nicest shower ever (despite the crowd of daddy-long-legs in the shower block. Gross)!

Campervan tea! Rice, ham, cheese, onion, pepper = nom nom!