Saturday 3rd December 2011

When Dave arrived this morning he had an idea for a walk! A few weeks ago we had done a walk from South Barrule plantation through Stoney Mountain. Dave had been looking at the map and had noticed a path going from South Barrule to Cringle. He reckoned we could make it a circular walk so, that is what we would do.

We arrived at South Barrule plantation and it was calm though cold and grey in parts. We headed off down the track, pausing at the fire pool on the way past.

We headed down the track, on the look out for any interesting pictures

As we reached the southern edge of the plantation, we noticed the sun breaking through the clouds over Castletown with beams shining across the sea.

We carried on along the track but then, started to come across junctions with tracks going off, that weren't on the map. Dave reckons to have a pretty good sense of direction so, we headed off along a fairly broad path.

After some way, there was a sign indicating the track ahead was for push bikes only, not walkers. Undeterred, we carried on but soon realised this was not heading in the direction we wanted to go. We retraced our tracks until we found a track going the same way but, at a higher level. We noticed some strange looking moss on a fallen tree trunk.

We carried on along this track for some time as it slowly deteriorated and became more muddy. Eventually we came out into a large cleared area near a quarry. We realised that, rather than heading towards Cringle we had done a circular route of South Barrule plantation! We picked our way down the uneven path until we reached a better track through the forest and headed down.

Within 10 minutes or so, we had arrived back at the car so, 2 hours of walking but, not the walk we had intended. It was now lunchtime so of course, Dave claimed he had planned for us to arrive back at this time!!

We had lunch and decided what to do next. The tide was on it's way in and with the forecast high winds, we headed to Castletown in order to park at the bottom of Fishers Hill and go for a walk. On arrival, we struggled to open the car doors with the wind. So, we took a couple of pictures, jumped back in the car and drove around instead

Next we headed towards Derbyhaven but, stopped by Hango Hill when we saw some wind surfers in the bay.

As well as the surfers, there was a dog walker braving the elements on the beach

Whilst sheltering from the wind, I noticed a rainbow over King William's College and the runway

We decided against going down to Langness, it was windy and rather cold where we were and Langness would just be colder. We headed instead to Port Soderick which we thought would be sheltered from the winds. By the time we arrived, we were losing the light so, decided against walking up the glen. Instead we went down to the sea front.

The light was definitely going now so, we decided to head for home, keeping an eye out for a sunset on the way. However, we soon ran into a heavy rain shower so, no sunset shots this week