Woke up to birdsong, one of life’s delights.

There were four of us on this walk. We set up a breakfast circle and pooled our resources: coffee, cups, sporks, stove, gas, flint, milk powder, porridge, biscuits, and cheers. Another delight.

The walk looked long:

In fact it was almost the exact distance as yesterday’s walk, about 21 km. We took a bus to Brook Chale, the trail head.

We were almost always on the cliffs for the entire walk. The cliffs were clearly an extension of the Jurassic coast, red, yellow, white…

I was annoyed that we had to take the golf course on the Tennyson Trail as a detour because of erosion, walking over old grounds.

But the annoyance dissipated on the cliffs after Freshwater Bay, as I entered my walking trance while hewing closer to the sea than the planned coastal path.

The expanse of green and blue, land and water and sky, as we approached the Tennyson monument was marvellous.

The Needle was slightly marred by the coastguard station’s metal mesh fencing and throngs of tourists. Lunch choices were ropey at the Alum Bay amusement park. We would have been better off waiting until Colwell Bay.

This second stage of the walk towards Yarmouth was more mixed. Some of it was on pavements above shingle beaches, so it was a bit built up but still enjoyable being right next to the sea. Some of the coast was taken over by a hideous holiday home development. Right after that, we took a detour on a woodland path and I appreciated the shade.

Isle of Wight, isle of delight. The locals were friendly: the ferrymen smiled and greeted, the publicans did not simper, the barflies did not stare at the out-of-towners. Public toilets were clean and functioning, buses were shiny and frequent—a Britain that worked.