Isle of Wight Part Two: Seeing how the other half lived & a trip to Pompey

This week we’re still reliving our Isle of Wight holiday geocaching adventures, and start with a day trip to Portsmouth or Pompey as some like to call it.  

 

Now there are a few ways in which to cross the Solent, and return to the mainland. When we travelled across to the island we of course had the car with us, so the only option was to travel on one of the rather slow car ferries, leaving from either Southampton or Portsmouth.

However, as a foot passenger, there are more options and some are lot quicker than others. But what you save in time, you lose in cash! Yes, the faster you go, the more you pay it seems!

There’s obviously the car ferry, or a faster smaller boat, but there is also a hovercraft. Having never been on a hovercraft before, and keen to say I had at least once, we decided to opt for that.  

 

It was quite big inside and comfortable, and a few moments after the air began to fill the enormous tyre around it, we were up in the air literally floating across the waves! Such good fun, I highly recommend it. The crossing was so quick as well.  

 

Arriving on Pompey’s stoney shoreline minutes later, we decided to take a stroll along the vast promenade to collect some of the great traditional caches in the TY42 HMS series. All were located along the front in a variety of hiding spots and most were nice and quick to find.  

 

We also completed a number of earthcaches along the way, including four in the Geological Forensics series, which included one near the stunning Spinnaker Tower.  

 

It was quite a nostalgic walk for me, having rollerbladed along the promenade many times some 20 odd years ago, when I was a student at the local university. Some of the sights were very familiar, others less so -a lot has changed in the town since I lived in it.  

 

The Remember Virtual cache at the Normandy Memorial Wall was really nice. I’d not seen the wall before, or the new museum, so it was great the virtual brought us to see it. 

Although, I hasten to add, the requirements of the Virtual really did tax our brains, especially as languages are not our strong point. But when we logged the cache later the lovely CO soon put us right on the ones we got wrong. 

 

What is so great about the seafront at Portsmouth is that you get to see a real mix of old and new naval and military features as well as other monuments and museums. 

Many new attractions have certainly been added since I lived in the town like Spinnaker Tower, the Outlet Mall and the D-Day Museum, but it’s nice to also see things like the historic round tower, an interesting part of the town’s history – which also has a nice little traditional cache nearby.  

The ‘Sidetracked Portsmouth Harbour’ cache, not far from the new waterfront outlet shopping mall, was clever and good fun to complete – although I messed up the numbers to get into the locked cache a few times, before I worked out the correct combination.  Before we knew it, it was time to head back across the Solent. 

 

Back on the Island we picked up a couple more caches not far from our holiday home in Sandown. These included another nice Earthcache called Sandown Bay Cliffs…always nice to have an early evening stroll along a beach.  

 

We finished the day with a quick stop off at a local fast-food outlet. As we sat in the drive through waiting to order we saw the funniest thing…a little fox sitting patiently waiting for his dinner! 

Yes, he was out in broad daylight, sitting amongst the parked cars, waiting for a burger and chips! Well, who needs to go to all the effort of hunting raw rabbit meat, when humans are happy to share their hot cooked meals!  

We were up bright and early the next day as I’d made an appointment to see the Queen…we had booked to visit the former holiday home of Queen Victoria - Osborne House. 

Ok, so I might have a had a bit of a job actually seeing her, since she’s been dead over 100 years, but you wouldn’t know it looking around her stunning house, which barely shows any signs of wear and tear or its true age.  

 

It was lovely to be able to wander through the stunning downstairs rooms of the house and the grounds were even more impressive. 

We loved the walk down to the private beach and the Swiss Robinson playhouse, built for her many children, was just adorable. 

 

Sadly, there are no geocaches on the site yet…something I’m sure a local cacher will rectify at some point…so it was only after several hours of exploring the house and grounds that we got out geocaching again. 

 

We decided to head to the pretty town of Cowes as we had yet to see it properly. A nice walk along the beachfront gave us the chance to pick up two traditional caches, the interestingly named ‘His uncle gave him a rocket’ – cleverly hidden on a piece of string in the fountain – and ‘Cabin Fever’ – a magnetic hidden under a bench. 

 

A quick stop on the way to the holiday home, in Godshill, earned us one more smiley – another nice quick to find traditional, ‘Welcome to Godshill number 3’. 

 

The following day I was off to see the stunning Carisbrooke Castle where poor King Charles I was incarcerated in the 1640s, before being executed in Whitehall. 

The other half was supposed to have joined me on the trip, but I think maybe he had had enough of seeing the former homes of royalty and opted to return to Portsmouth to see the historic dockyard instead.  

 

Being out on my own for the day, was a great opportunity to clock up more geocache finds on the island. So, after a nice morning wandering around the castle, I headed off to grab the appropriately named mystery cache ‘The princess was of ancient line’. 

It turned out that GZ had some fantastic views of the town of Newport and the castle. After a little hunt I uncovered the nice sized cache, which was perfect for a couple of TBs that I needed to drop off. 

 

After grabbing a sandwich and a cache at the nearby superstore, I set off for Mottistone estate on the south coast. 

Now famous for having hosted Hollywood actor, Benedict Cumberbatch’s wedding, the estate is vast and aside from entry to the house and gardens, it is free.  

 

Parking up in the car park nearby, I set off up the hill through the woodland to find Redmoby’s nice series of caches based on words from William Long’s Dictionary of Isle of Wight slang words. First up was ‘Wopse’, a lovely quick find up a little embankment.  

 

Next was Eace, a very sneaky custom cache, neatly hidden within a piece of wood attached to the gate.  A clever little mechanism, well worthy of a favourite point.  

 

Woodland soon turned to heathland - it really is a beautiful and tranquil place and there were very few dog walkers during my visit. 

The series took me to the far end of the heath and up and down what I can only describe as a goats path, in order to grab the next two caches. It was a little muddy and slippery in places, not helped by my inappropriate footwear, but someone I managed not to do my usual bottom slide, which often occurs on this type of terrain. 

Before I knew it, I was approaching the impressive Megalithic monument, ‘Longstone’. The two sizeable greensand sandstone rocks are over 6000 years-old and it’s believed that they could be the remains of the entrance to the Neolithic communal long barrow nearby, where judicial affairs were once carried out.  

 

It was great to wander around them, and it was lovely to have an Earthcache to complete at such an interesting historical and geological site.  

 

On my way back down the hill and into the woodland, I picked up a couple of other caches. Both were found without too many problems, which was good because I was rapidly running out of time and had to dash back across the island to pick up the other half from the ferry.  

 

Even with rush hour traffic and having to divert around the many road closures that seem to be in place all over the island – I’ve never seen so many key roads closed all at the same time - I made it to the port with 5 minutes to spare. 

 

The following day was sadly our last, so after packing up our belongings it was time to make our way to the port to catch the ferry back to Southampton…but not before we had made a little diversion to collect some caches around Bembridge.  

 

We actually had bags of time so I thought it would be nice to visit the coastal village and pick up a few more caches along the way.  

 

It was pretty quiet for a Saturday morning, so parking was easy and we had a lovely stroll along the pebbly beach to pick up ‘The White Tower’ cache hidden near a life ring, and the Earthcache at the Palmer Memorial, which focused on it’s interesting granite properties.  

 

We were also in the right place to grab a couple of the lab caches in the Bembridge Bimble series. Neither was too challenging, one at the harbour and the other at Bembridge ledge – the wave cut platform just around the corner from the harbour.  

 

We then set off in the car to collect a few caches and dashes including the Village Sign cache and the nice letter box St Helens Quay. 

 

Whilst waiting for the Ferry to depart from Cowes…which was delayed again by about an hour… I had a nice wander around the nearby streets to grab a snack and another geocache ‘The floating bridge cache the 2nd’.

I also attempted to find ‘Under the Umbrella’ which was hidden somewhere on a large circular metal bench, but after about 15 minutes of literally going round in circles, I had to call it a day. 

 

Back on the mainland I managed to persuade the other half to make a couple of quick diversions so that I could grab a cache in Berkshire and Surrey – two counties which until this point, I hadn’t been geocaching in. 

Luckily, I managed to pick two very quick and easy caches and dashes, and we made it home in time for the football game that night! 

 

Such a great trip, I really enjoyed my time on the Isle of Wight. It could probably do with a few more caches, we went to lots of beautiful places that either didn’t have any, or only one or two, but those we did find were all great fun and nicely hidden. 

A big thank you to all of the COs for setting and maintaining them all so well. 

 

Next time, we’ll be out on the huge geo-art trail ‘No Cheese, Gromit’ and picking up some Virtual caches on the Norfolk coast. Until then, if you are off on your geocaching holidays, we hope you have a great time. Safe travels.