I dragged the teenager into daylight and headed for the West Wight today. We parked at the National Trust car park at Mottistone Manor, then followed their suggested route towards the coast. This led through the churchyard down a short lane, over a stile and onto a footpath. This was slightly squishy in places, but had a stream to the right, and plenty of herbage; the nettles were growing, and cow parsley was coming into bud, and all the hedgerow plants were greening up. We followed a pair of mallards to a wild meadow, where they took to a small pond, and we continued onwards.
The path turned right at a junction, bordered by a laid hedge to the left, and we headed onwards to walk along the edge of another stream and a small woodland. This latter was very pretty in the dappled sunlight, with the deciduous trees putting out leaves, and masses of cow parsley on the path. We could hear the songbirds warbling in the trees and hedgerows and noticed a few bees and bumblebees buzzing among the early wildflowers. The path crossed a small bridge and another stile into a rather soggy meadow, coming out after a little while onto the military road.
We turned right, passed two cottages, then crossed over the road to follow a permissive path through fields to the cliff edge at Sudmoor Point, and picking up the coastal path. There was a glorious view here all along the coast from Blackgang to Tennyson Down, and looking down over the landslip we could see that the tide was far out and that the rocky reef was exposed. Unfortunately there was no access to the beach as far as I could see, so we didn't get closer. The teenager was tired so that was probably a good thing! We followed the coastal path for a while until we met a footpath going inland, and followed this back to the military road, and then crossed over and picked up the final path back to Mottistone. This was a lovely farm track between high hedges, secluded from the breeze and warm in the spring sunshine, and led us back to the church and then the car park.
As the teenager had made it all the way round, I rewarded her (and me, obviously) with an ice cream from the van at Compton Bay before driving home along lots of country lanes, avoiding many suicidal pigeons and a pheasant.
Distance: 2.8 miles
Footpaths: BS74, Coastal Path, BS75, BS100
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| Mottistone Church |
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| Woodland Stream |
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| View from the coastal path towards Freshwater |
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