On 14" May thirty one eager East Surrey Walkers travelling by car, ferry, train or hovercraft arrived in the Isle of Wight for a 7 day holiday at the HF hotel in Freshwater Bay, all praying that the amazingly good weather of the previous three weeks would last for just one more. We didn’t pray hard enough! It was already pouring when we set out the following morning. The IoW is a wonderful place for walking with an enviable array of beautiful coastal, downland, woodland and open country walks. Unfortunately the open downs offer no shelter from the heavy rain driven by near horizontal winds. We were all soaked and very grateful for the wonderful heated boot room at the hotel where everything dried off overnight. The next day we managed to see the Needles before the next gale hit us but that was the last really wet day and we had a lot of good weather thereafter. The wet weather was terminated by thunder storms and the most spectacular lightning storms over the bay which went on for hours.

Tony laid on a variety of interesting walks for the two groups averaging 6 miles for the shorter group and 10 for the longer. Most walks were local to the west of the island but on some days we went further afield in our own cars or using local buses to reach our start point. We wandered over the local cliffs and downs, up the river valley to Yarmouth, to Carisbrook Castle and many other beautiful places. The HF fed us well with a great variety of enormous breakfasts and evening meals and we were entertained in the evenings with quizzes, competitions and even lessons in hand bell ringing.

On our day off, people travelled all over the island to places of interest - Tennyson’s house, Mottistone Gardens, Carisbrook Castle , Osborne House, The Wildheart Sanctury, a donkey sanctuary and Ventnor Botanical Gardens. Our enthusiastic palaeontologists hunted for fossils on the beaches and I was quite put off my scrambled egg when a fossilised turd was presented for inspection at the breakfast table! There were many highlights in the week.

Highlights were seeing a red squirrel near Godshill and on the same walk seeing the panoramic views from St. Boniface Down.

Jim set a new record of leading a group of 18 out on the walk, only to return with 2, with Tony Pearson looking on outside the hotel!! Towards the end 6 or 8 went to the pub, the rest for ice creams etc. Not as bad as it sounds!

One highlight was on our first day’s walking when we came upon a herd of cows with calves blocking our path to the stile. However one of our ladies was not fazed a bit by this and marched up to them, and in no time they dispersed thereby leaving the rest of us a safe passage. Thank you to our hero of the day!!

The Wildheart Sanctury was well worth a visit. Here we found endangered animals such as lions and tigers rescued from circuses after being blatantly abused, also lemurs, servals and many primates rescued from the illegal pet trade and kept in appalling conditions. They have all been given a forever home.

Our thanks go to Keith and Tony for organising such an interesting and varied week and to all the volunteer leaders of the walks. We look forward to the next holiday!

Thank you to Judy Smythson for writing this report and to those who contributed with the highlights and photos.

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