Monday 10 February 2020

Isle of Wight Holiday Diary #8 - There's more to Bembridge than meets the Eye

Hi there everyone 😀

I know it seems like an age ago but for today's post we are back on the Isle of Wight, picking up on our three week break there at the end of the summer last year.

Having spent a lovely day exploring Culver Down & The Bembridge Windmill  we decided to head back over to Bembridge to see what else we could find ...

Day 10 - Monday
Whilst it was quite grey it seemed that the rain of the previous day had moved on, at least for a while, and we started out with a re-visit to the lifeboat station ...

We had a walk out to the station, but were a bit early so didn't get to see inside this time ... it's definitely worth a look though, if you've not been before.

We wondered back to shore, taking in the sky which just looked amazing ... 
We had a brief wander along the beach and found, what I would say is the best view to be had of the lifeboat station, especially with the light as it was ...

It was a good spot for a vintage selfie ... you know the kind ... where you prop your camera up, set the self timer and make a mad dash to get in front of the camera before it goes off ...


I have to say that I'd almost forgotten how much better quality this type of 'selfie' is ... even when taken with a phone with a half decent camera ...
We headed back to the car, taking in the new mural ...

... and Wave sculpture which had appeared since our last visit ...
It was time to head off and our next stop was Bembridge village, where we had a wander round a few gift and antique shops before having a look at the church ...
... before having to break out the brolly as the rain could hold off no more ...

By now we were ready to find somewhere for lunch and, after consulting the trusty OS map, we decided to head for St Helens Duver, which was just around the other side of the Bembridge harbour and somewhere we'd not visited before.

Being National Trust members we took advantage of the NT car park, which was a little off piste, but gave us a nice walk through the dunes to the sea front ...

... from where it was but a short walk to Baywatch on the Beach, which looked very inviting, so we headed in and had the nicest lunch with a fab view ...

Refreshed we had a short wander a bit further along to the remains of St Helens church ... 

The tower is all that remains of the church which was built early in the twelfth century and dates from about 1220. The church was ceased to be used in 1703 when the tower was bricked up and turned into the seamark, which is how it remains today ...
Apparently the derelict church became a source of holy stones which were taken by sailors to scrub down the decks of wooden ships.

We walked to the end of the footpath, which came to a full stop at Nodes Point ...
We decided it was time to call it a day and retraced our steps back along the promenade to head back to Bowcombe and Bramble Cottage 😀

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1 comment:

Thanks for taking time to comment on my blog. I love to hear what people think about what Martin and I have been up to.