Arreton

After a lazy summer my hiking buddy and I decided to get back out into the countryside again today. We drove up to Robin Hill to drop her family at Bestival (after we'd driven back to collect the tickets), then pootled down the road to Arreton Barns. We had no map, obviously, but thought we remembered the route of a nice walk. We were mostly right.

We walked through the barns site, past the duckpond and St George's church, and came out on the main road. Here we crossed over the road and entered a cabbage field. We walked all the way up the track to find a wire fence with no way through, so retraced our steps to find a path through the cabbages on our right. This also led to a fence, but we were able to hop over it to an obvious path on the other side. This led in due course over a couple of stiles and brought us onto the main Newport to Sandown cycle path. We headed towards Sandown, and shortly after found a path on our left leading to Haseley Manor; this mostly consisted of boardwalks as the path was rather muddy, and came out right next to the Manor House. Last time we were here the path was closed so it was nice to see the work that had been done.

From Haseley, we walked away from the road, past the outbuildings, and towards the downs. The path led us to a lake, rather low on water after the summer sunshine, and we walked round it, scaring the waterfowl, until we met back up with the main path. From here we continued up the hill on a farm track thinking that if we got to the top we would be able to get a glimpse of Bestival. However. It was a hot day, we were tired and unfit, so when we got to a gateway by the woods we sat down and talked ourselves out of it. Turns out we wouldn't have seen anything anyway! Back down the hill to the lake, turned right and followed the path back to Arreton Barns. Here we made a few purchases at Farmer Jacks farm shop and then had a drink on the terrace at the Dairyman's Daughter, and listened to a trio of musicians who were jolly good. Lovely afternoon!

Hasely Manor

Teasels

View from the gate

St George

Arreton Church

Dairyman's Daughter, Arreton

We were invited out to lunch the other day, at short notice, and ended up at The Dairyman's Daughter at Arreton Barns. I bagged a large table, and, once everyone had arrived, we ordered food. I ordered a fish pie with fresh vegetables, the teenager ordered sausage and mash, and others ordered pork schnitzel, cottage pie, and steak and ale pie. Each portion was huge, and scrumptious. Somehow the children managed to consume ice cream for dessert! I would definitely eat there again, post diet of course!

 

After lunch we wandered down to the 'penny' arcade (10p a go) and played on the ancient machines. These included fortune tellers, shove penny, one armed bandits, and duck shooting. This was much more fun than I imagined and everyone was giggling by the end. Some of us went and looked round the gift shop, then went and watched the glass-blowing until the rain started again. At this point most of the party went home, but teenager and I stayed to watch a glass panda being created. The heavens opened during this, so it was nice to be in the warm and dry.

 

Arreton Barns is always a safe bet for an afternoon out with visitors, especially if they have smallish children.

Easter Holidays

We're having a quiet holiday at home as we're both tired. The weather has mostly been lovely so far, and we've pottered about doing housework jobs, a bit of gardening and tootling around the Island.  Last week we went for a wander around Newtown with chums (see previous post), and now we are doing things to add to our Challenge 2014 list.

On Saturday we drove out to Shorwell for the annual Mammoth Jumble Sale in aid of the Hospice. I have been meaning to go for years. I was rather disappointed to be honest. Nothing at all that I wanted to buy, and I'm usually a sucker for some old tat at a church/ village sale. I bought a fairy cake for 20p then we wandered back to the village, buying some eggs from the farm gate on the way, and visiting the village shop so we could get some sweets. Shorwell village is pretty and needs investigating further; there are several footpaths leading off it so I suspect walks will commence soon.

Today we ventured to the tip to get rid of the garden rubbish, then drove to Briddlesford Farm. While there we stopped for tea, cake, coke and ice cream at Bluebells Cafe. This came to £8, which I thought was a bit steep, but the chocolate brownie that I had was to die for so I forgave them their prices.  Afterwards we popped in to the farm shop, but saw nothing that we wanted to buy. We then drove to Arreton Barns and pootled along to the Carp Pond. We bought some fish food from the Maritime Museum and spent quarter of an hour throwing it at frenzied carp and some deft ducks. Very pleasant. We carried on along the path and came to the parish church. This was open so we went in and had a look around; there were medieval tombstones, 17th century chests, the remains of an ancient font, some nice tiling by the altar, and bells.  I found it very calming and interesting, but my companion was not particularly interested, apart from by the organ. She could not work out how anyone could play it! The church is about 1000 years old, and is very weathered on the outside but appears to be in good condition inside.  To finish off, we went into Farmer Jack's Farm Shop where we found a few interesting things we wanted to buy, and lots of things we wanted to buy but couldn't really justify. My favourite was frozen, ready to bake danish pastries. Yummmmm!

Arreton

Well, we picked a glorious day for a walk! We parked at Arreton Barns, then headed down the road and turned left by the White Lion pub.  The lane took us up past the church and carp pond and then up to the downs.  We were surrounded by wheat fields and wildflowers, blue butterflies, damselflies and, at one point, a buzzard which got mobbed by crows shortly afterwards.  We turned left before the top of the down, heading towards a disused chalk pit (hidden by undergrowth), then followed the path back towards the village gathering scraped knees, stings from nettles and prickles from thistles along the way. 

Before we got to the village we turned left along another footpath, this one rather more regularly used, until we reached Shepherd's Lane.  At the junction was a vary large pond, a glorious shade of blue; it was a mystery - this pond was not marked on my map, nor was it on either GPS system we had. Curious!  Anyway, we continued down the lane, gawped through the gates of Haseley Manor and beat a hasty retreat when we realised there was a wedding taking place!  Reaching the main road, we crossed and picked up the footpath that went straight through somebody's garden! A dog in the garden next door growled and barked at us until we had climbed over the gate and headed off across the field. We crossed the stile and found ourselves in a large meadow full of buttercups and yellow iris.  This led to even more meadows with even more wild flowers! Heaven! There was even a stream with little wooden-plank footbridges across it.

The path rose upwards again and we followed the path along the edge of a copse, turned right at the end down a little hill then climbed into a sheep paddock and up a steep hill to another stile, a path through fields of potatoes and wheat, across the main road and back to Arreton Barns.  We went in search of ice cream for the children, but it was after 5pm so the kiosks were closed, and the glorious Farmer Jack's Farm Shop only sold large tubs. Shame.  

Route:  http://gb.mapometer.com/walking/route_3241263.html

Distance:  3.7 miles

Footpaths: A12, A13, A9, A17, A15, A1, A2, A5b