The Channel Islands - April 2022

My college friend John C. is still on his mission to visit all inhabited islands in the British Isles (I have previously written about our visit to several Scottish Isles in September 2020).  Having visited nearly 200 islands he is nearing the end of his quest.  In April I joined him on his trip to the Channel Islands where we paid a visit to all islands bar one, Brecqhou, a private island where permission to visit was not granted.

Aurigny Air

I flew into Guernsey on the reasonably priced Aurigny Airlines flight from Manchester - so much cheaper and quicker than driving to the South Coast and catching a ferry.   Since I arrived before John I set off from the hotel (the quite lovely Fleur du Jardin in Kings Mills) for an exploratory walk.  

Ruette Tranquille

The roads are quite narrow, in fact so narrow that is acceptable for cars to drive on the pavement whenever they need room to pass each other.  They also have a lot of Ruette Tranquilles which are particularly narrow roads where they have a 15 mph speed limit.  

While Guernsey and the other Channel Islands are fiercely British, being British Dependancies, the majority of street names are in fact French.  The islands haven't been French since the 1300's and I wouldn't have expected that all the roads date from that time but somehow French names have survived and perhaps grown.

The Little Chapel

The Little Chapel Interior

I walked southwards to the nearby Little Chapel - a very small church barely big enough for one or two people that was built in 1914.  It was intended to be a miniature version of the basilica at Lourdes and it looks quite amazing being entirely covered with pieces of old crockery.  

Vazon Bay

Fort Hommet

From the Little Chapel I walked over to the north coast at Vazon Bay.  This is a beautiful bay with a 19th Century Martello Tower (of many around the coat of the British Isles) and then on the east side of the bay Fort Hommet which is a Victorian era defense that had been reinforced and improved by the Germans during their occupation of the island in WWII.

Martello Tower

John arrived later in the evening and we had a few drinks and a nice meal in the hotel before calling it a day.

The Harbour, St Peter Port

The next morning we were off to Herm on the ferry from the capital of Guernsey, St Peter Port.  It was a nice day but quite cool when we got out to sea.  We landed in Herm on the Rosaire steps and made a call over to the private island of Jethou across the bay.  Jethou is leased from the crown by one Sir Peter Ogden (of ComputaCenter fame) and John had contacted Sir Peter to see if we could visit.  He agreed and he sent a boat over to pick us up after our ferry docked.

Our Ride to Jethou, and the Herm Ferry

The boat was a Sea Legs inflatable.  It has wheels at the front and back and when we reached Jethou the wheels came down and we drove up the slipway into the garage.  Pretty slick.

Safely Parked in the Garage

Sir Peter was not in residence (he has places elsewhere on the globe) but the island manager gave us a map and set us off on the trail around the island.  It was a most pleasant walk of only a couple of miles.  They are trying to grow vines on south side of the island and on the west side there is a small hut.  This was the writing hut of Compton Mackenzie (Whisky Galore, Monarch of the Glen) who leased the island in the early 1920's.  The hut was well preserved and surprisingly unlocked.

ComptonMacKenzie's Writing Hut

Back around the north side of the island we passed the main residence, gardens and swimming pool.  We completed the circumnavigation and one of the employees (it takes 4 full time employees to maintain the island) took us back to Herm.

Back on Herm we had lunch in the local pub complemented by a couple of pints of Thatchers Haze cider.  

Belvoir Beach

John stayed at the pub while I set off to walk around Herm (John is not as mobile as he once was when he walked around the coast of Britain so he was ore inclined to rest than walk).  I crossed over to the east side of the island past St Tugual's Chapel and over to the beautiful Belvoir Bay.  Further to the north there is the wide and expansive Shell Beach (oddly without many shells).  Walking back towards the west side of the island and the harbour there were many nesting burrows of puffins.  Alas there were no puffins there - it wasn't their season.

Shell Beach

Back in the harbor there was just time for another cider before we boarded the ferry (The Isle of Herm) for the return trip to St Peter Port. 

Leaving Herm

The next morning we were off on our boat to Alderney.  This was the most distant island and most people fly from Guernsey to Alderney.   We however had bookings on the fast boat, the Salty Blonde, which was quite fortuitous as the aircraft had a mechanical problem and was not operating that day.  The Salty Blonde was only an 8 passenger boat so it was hard to see how it made money though I did learn that the service receives financial support from the local government.

The Salty Blonde, our ride to Alderney

The visibility was quite limited and there was a low mist on the sea so we could not see much - thank goodness for the boat's radar.  We had booked a taxi tour of the island and as we walked up the jetty we saw our ride was waiting.  Dave of Dave's Taxis was there to take us around and regale us with stories of the island and its dark past during the occupation.  Dave was convinced that far more deaths in the German prison camps took place than the records tell.  He felt there were an order of magnitude more deaths.  Whatever the truth there were some dark things that went on during the German occupation.

Fortified Beach, Alderney

Coastal Defenses

Dave took us around the perimeter of the island pointing out various memorials, defensive forts and gun emplacements.  We stopped and looked around an old Roman Fort now known as the Nunnery.  There wasn't much to see of the Roman ruins but the site had periodically been improved in the 17th and 18th centuries and was once a nunnery from where it's current name was taken.  In WWII the Germans added to the site with beach defenses and gun emplacements. 

One of Andy's Alderney Balls

On the wall of the site was one of Andy Goldsworthy's massive clay balls.  He placed 11 of these balls at various locations around the island in 2011.  The idea is that they will slowly erode and disintegrate.  This one over 10 years later is weathered but still quite large.

Blue not Red Post Boxes

The main town of St Anne's is very nice, if a bit touristy.  We had a coffee and croissant and then I headed out for a walkabout.  I really liked the blue post boxes in the Channel Islands and the ones on Alderney were even more interesting being decorated with knitted tops.  

George M lived here

Several notable people have lived on Alderney - the cricket commentator John Arlott, the cricketer Ian Botham, the Beatles producer George Martin, Julie Andrews.  I thought George Martin's house was quite modest for such a famous man - the fifth Beatle.

George Martin's modest house

We returned to the harbour after lunch and boarded our boat back to Guernsey.  It was a shame that the weather didn't really clear all day.  We did not really have any good visibility.

Cream Tea

In St Peter Port we indulged in a cream tea before I set off to explore Castle Cornet, the fortification on the tip of the pier protecting the St Peter Port's harbour.   

Castle Cornet

After Castle Cornet I searched out Victor Hugo's house.  Apparently he was exiled here in 1855 and stayed for 15 years until Napoleon III's empire fell and he was allowed to return to Paris.  He wrote Les Miserables in Guernsey.  It was closing time at the museum so I didn't get inside.

Victor Hugo's House, Guernsey

The next day's island was Sark.  We caught the ferry in the morning with a boat load of other tourists and were dropped at the harbor on the east coast of the island.  There are no cars on Sark, just bicycles, horse drawn carriages and tractors pulling the tourists up the hill from the harbor.  

Brecqhou from Sark

The sister island to Sark is Brecqhou.  A small private island off the west coast of the island.  This island is owned or rather leased by the Barclay Brothers.  One of these financier twins has died but the other still owns the lease.  They appear not to be well liked in the islands as they seem to be quite the unacceptable face of tax evading capitalism.  They did not respond to John's request to visit the island so this is one of the islands he will not be able to set foot on. 

To compensate we did walk over to the west side of Sark to get a good view of Brecqhou.  We enquired about hiring a small skiff to make a stealth beach landing but even that did not seem possible.

The west side of the island with the view of Brecqhou is a Ramsar Site.  I didn't know what a Ramsar Site was but John clued me in.  It is a wetland site of international importance.  There was a convention in 1971 in Ramsar in Iran where it was determined that such important wetlands should be identified and preserved.  There are many of them around the world, including on Herm and Jethou where we were earlier and where we didn't even know they were Ramsar sites.

It was a very pleasant walk around the island.  Lots of flowers were blooming and, as opposed to the prior day, the sky was clear and there was great visibility.  We adjourned to a pub for a beverage and then I set off to walk to the north side of the island.  

La Seigneurie

On the road out to the north there is a nice church and La Seigneurie.  The Seigneurie is the house of the head of Sark - the Seigneur.  It is quite an impressive house with beautiful gardens.

La Seigneurie Gardens

Back at the pub there was just time for another cider before we left for the ferry back to Guernsey.  Sadly my impression of Sark was tainted by there being quite a lot of tourists there.  The ferry deposits a large number every day and they make the central area of the island quite busy.  Once you get out to the fringes of the island it is quieter but the center felt a little cheesy and touristy.

However, Mervyn Peake lived on Sark - who knew.

Back in Guernsey we took a taxi to the airport where I rented a car.  This was going to be our transportation for the last day on the islands.  We drove around the island as best we could (it is not a straightforward thing to navigate the roads and country lanes of Guernsey).  

German Coastal Defenses everywhere

We did manage to find the location of our next island, Lihou.  This is over on the north west side of Guernsey and is connected by a causeway accessible at low tide.  When we saw it in the afternoon the tide was in and the expanse of water to the island looked formidable and it was difficult to imagine being able to walk over to the island - there was quite an expanse of sea to cross.

High Tide at the Lihou Causeway

The next day we set off to further explore Guernsey in our car.  There was a World War II Occupation Museum that we wanted to see and we had to get out to Lihou when the tide was out.  The museum was interesting with lots of artifacts from the war.  It truly was a terrible time for those residents of the island that remained during the German Occupation - food was scarce and most of it went to the occupiers.

The Lihou Causeway at Low Tide

The tide was out around midday so we made our way to the Lihou Causeway.  What a difference a few hours made.  There was now a wide expanse of rock and seaweed with a primitive causeway through the middle.  We walked over to the island and I did a quick walk around the perimeter.  

Lihou Priory

There was the ruin of a 12th century priory and a nice pool of water they called the Venus Pool, a large house that you can now stay in, but it is a very small island.  

The Venus Pool, Lihou

We took in the view for a while and then walked back across the causeway before the tide came in again.

This was the end of my stay.  John was staying longer and was going over to the island of Jersey later on.  I dropped him back at the hotel and then went to the airport for my flight back to Manchester.  A most satisfying trip to a beautiful part of the world.

The Mohave Road

At the end of March I went on a short solo off road trip to explore the Old Mojave Road - a trail through the Mojave National Preserve from the Colorado River in the east over to the west near Barstow.

I drove down from Sacramento in the evening and reached Bakersfield before tiredness took over and I got a hotel room - nothing fancy in that not too glamorous city.  The drive down on Highway 99 reminded me of what a terrible price some places pay for their agricultural industries.  The smell of the large scale cattle and dairy operations on the way through Modesto, Turlock, Merced and the like is quite awful.  California is not all beauty and wondrous places.

The Fox Theater in Bakersfield

The next day on my search for a decent cup of coffee I ended up in an older part of town, a part that I had visited on my last trip there, and I enjoyed walking around the old streets admiring some of the wonderful old buildings.  

The beautiful old Kress Department Store in Bakersfield

Leaving Bakersfield I drove up Highway 58 through the Tehachapis.  It was Spring and the hills were green; the absolute best time of year to be there.  Moving on through Barstow and out on Interstate 40 to Needles the road crosses the Mojave Desert and the landscape becomes pretty tedious.  The only impressive thing to note is the rail network that parallels the road in many places.  The trains go on and on in seemingly endless chains across the landscape.

Needles on the old Route 66

In Needles I searched for supplies for my trip but came up short.  Needles is a strange town.  It looks to be a reasonable size but there are only gas stations and fast food stops.  There wasn't a grocery store anywhere in town.  I did find a small Mexican restaurant that did have some pretty decent food served on polystyrene plates with plastic forks.

Charles Schultz spent time in Needles as a boy and in the Peanuts cartoon Snoopy's brother Spike came from Needles.  There is a statue of Spike in the museum there but alas the museum was closed.

So with a full tank of gas but slender supplies I set out for the Mohave Road.  It starts at the Colorado River a few miles north of Needles on the site of the old Fort Mojave.  

The Colorado River near the site of Fort Mojave

The entire Mojave Road links old forts across the desert.  These forts were built in the 1800's to provide protection for mail and supplies traveling between the coast and the interior of Arizona.  Prior to the forts the route was used by the Native Americans as they moved around the area.  Water was and still is scarce so it made sense to have settlements near the water sources and trails between them.

The remains of Fort Piute

The trail rises gently through granite bedrock in a north west direction until after about 12 miles it crosses the California/Nevada boundary.  Shortly after it crosses Highway 95 and continues west across the Piute Valley and Piute Creek.  At around 23 miles the trail reaches Fort Piute.  There are remains of the fort here along with signs of earlier inhabitants.  The road for vehicles ends here and only a hiking trail continues on the path of the old Mohave Road.  I had to double back and take a short bypass route around this obstruction to rejoin the true road further on.

Sunset in the Piute Range

I stopped for the night at the head of the pass over the Piute Range of hills (around 3,500 ft elevation).  It was a nice sunset and a beautiful remote location fro the night.  Rather than pitch the tent I took the easy way out and slept in the back of the 4Runner.

The Piute Corral

The Piute Corral

In the morning after a short drive I again intersected the old Mojave Road again.  Just north of the intersection was an old cattle corral, the Piute Corral.  Still in fine shape after all these years.

Joshua Tree Country

The road continues eastwards across the Lanfair Valley.  I say road but it is not a paved road as such, it is all dirt, but apart from a few sections of roller coaster undulations a fairly good dirt road.  It is Joshua Tree country here and there are some beautiful examples of these fine trees.

Leave a penny in the can

Out to the south of the road there is a VORTAC beacon (an aircraft navigational aid) and shortly afterwards the road passes a tin can suspended from a Joshua Tree.  It has become customary to deposit a penny or some other coin in this can as you pass by.  I only had a quarter.

The Nevada Southern Railway Marker

The road then crosses the Ivanpah/Lanfair Road and route of the old Nevada Southern Railway.  The railway first built in the 1890's was long ago abandoned but there is a historical marker.

The drop to Watson Wash

At around mile 49 the road drops steeply down into Watson Wash.  This was perhaps the most challenging (i.e. fun) bit of the road, especially when soloing and you can't see over the hood of the car.  

Rock Spring

Shortly after the road reaches Rock Spring, another watering hole along the way.  There are remnants of an Army Post there above the valley floor and higher up the slope there is an old stone house built in the 1930's that is still in good shape.

The Cabin at Rock Spring

The road continues down Cedar Canyon (it's name becomes Cedar Canyon Road) and then crosses the Kelso-Cima Road as it crosses the Kelso Wash.  The road in this section is relatively unremarkable as it crosses the wash to Marl Springs, another watering hole on the Mojave Road.   There are occasional sand dunes along the way where the blowing sand has accumulated next to the low hills.  The Kelso Dunes being a named example of these.  Sometimes the road crosses these sand dunes but fortunately nothing to cause any problems with driving.

Kelso Wash and Sand Dunes

The road then heads across a dry lake bed, Soda Lake.  Thankfully there had been no rain in recent weeks so the surface was quite drivable.  On the far side (the western side) of the lake is Soda Springs.  Another spring where the Army established a post.  There is a massive cairn of rocks there, known as the Travelers Monument that has presumably been created by rocks left by people passing that way.  

The Travelers Monument

Just north of Soda Springs is the small settlement of Zzyzx.  This was the Christian community created by Dr Curtis Springer in 1944 to provide help to the homeless and poor of the LA area.   Zzyzx, named so that it would be the last word in the English Dictionary,  grew from a tent camp to a more significant small town with buildings and a swimming pool and a lagoon.  It gave many people a lift up in their livers but alas it all came to an end when in 1974 the BLM forced an eviction of Dr Springer and his entourage on rather dubious tax charges.  It is now a University of California Desert Studies Center.

Zzyzx

Zzyzx

  I took a look around Zzyzx and while there were a few cars there I found no sign of any people.  It is one of those weird and wonderful places in the California Desert.

Zzyzx

Someone had a dream in Zzyzx

Leaving the Traveler's Monument the road crosses an area of sand that is a bit tricky to follow.  The route is marked by cairns and poles but there are so many intersecting trails that it does get a little confusing.  Still it was a fun drive at relatively high speed through the sand.  

The Mojave River

The Union Pacific crosses the Road

After crossing the sand dunes the road intersects the Mojave River.   At this time of year it is not much of a river but there is a trickle of water.  I followed the bank of the river and then crossed over the river on to the other side.  The road runs near the Union Pacific Railway here and I followed the river upstream and under the railway bridge.  The road then enters Afton Canyon and for the next few miles I drove down the canyon on the sandy river bottom.  I imagine in times of flood this is not passable but at this time it was a fun drive down the canyon.

Afton Canyon

The canyon walls come together and the road gets closer to the railroad tracks.  Finally there is a short section where the road follows quite close along the railway track bed.  I don't think you would want to be there when a train is passing.  At the end of this section, the railway crosses a bridge and the road drops down into a flooded section.  

The Water Crossing

I was a bit apprehensive about proceeding here.  The water was wide and several hundred yards long and of unknown depth.  I walked around the whole flooded section and probed and prodded at the water.  It didn't seem too deep, and it appeared to have a firm sandy bottom.  There were tracks of other vehicles that had obviously passed that way so I took a chance.  It was fine.  Not too deep and a firm footing.  Shortly after the first water crossing there was another similar one.  Again the going was good.

Looking back towards Afton Canyon and the Campground

At this point there was a parking area and camping area, the Afton Canyon Campground.  This was almost the end of the trail and I continued on down the Mojave River bed before finally turning up Manix Wash and joining the freeway (I-15).  Rather than immediately get on the freeway I wanted to visit the final Army Camp on the road.  I drove along a dirt road beneath a power line looking for Camp Cady.  There was a marker near the location and it was supposed to be a short 3/4 mile walk to the ruins of the camp.  I staggered around for a long time but I didn't find any sign of the camp so I finally gave up and headed back to the road.

End of the Road, Camp Cady

I dined in nearby Barstow and stayed there overnight.  The next day it was a long day's drive back to Sacramento with very fond memories of the Mojave Road.