The coast walk that was not along the coast

On the morning after the night before we travelled on the FastCat to Ryde on the Isle of Wight. Still high and buzzing after last night's concert and fortified with a substantial breakfast we were looking forward to walking part of the Round the Isle Coastal Path from Cowes to Ryde.

It all started so well, bright, sunny morning with a most enjoyable trip across the Solent to Ryde Pier followed by a bus ride to East Cowes. Even East Cowes was not too bad, still sunny and a cup of coffee courtesy of Waitrose to wash down a hot cross bun before setting off on the 8 miles back to Ryde.

Then it started to go downhill. Except the path which was uphill for over 2.5 miles alongside the busy A road in to Cowes. It got marginally better for a while before descending through the backs of 1070s housing to Wotton to cross a creek, rejoining the main road again to climb out of the town.

At Wooton we saw the sea - for about 3 minutes as we crossed the bridge, only the second sighting since we left Cowes. The rest of the journey was just as uninspiring - touching the coast near the ferry port before finally reaching the coast as we approached Ryde Pier.

The day was only saved by a local gentleman who came to talk to us whilst we were sitting on a bench overlooking some old Abbey Ruins eating our Waitrose egg and cress sandwiches and remaining hot cross buns. We had a long and interesting conversation with him - he pointed out some places to look out for on the remaining couple of miles.

On an 8 mile coast path we'd walked along the coast for about 300 yards.

By this time too, the bright sunny weather had deteriorated into a grey gloom so we were glad of a cup of tea before boarding the FastCat back to Portsmouth.

The day ended well back at the White Swan. Their generosity the night before with the sliders paid off handsomely as we went back there for our evening rations and more sliders.