Day Eight - Guernsey and Herm Island - 10 April

The weather was chilly but mostly sunny so we took the opportunity to go to Herm, an island twenty minutes east of Guernsey. Having the sun out does make a difference. The Trident ferry left at ten thirty from the St Peter Port harbour and we returned on the two thirty ferry. Herm is a very pretty island and it is the smallest of the Channel Islands open to the public. It is only one and a half miles long and half a mile wide. There are no cars but tractors and quad bikes.

When we got off the ferry we headed up a steep incline and walked across the island through woods and open farmland to the attractive beaches at Belvoir Bay and Shell Beach on the eastern side.

We found the beach café at Shell Beach open and sat in the sun enjoying their homemade chocolate cakes and a cuppa. We walked around the north of the island which has sandy beaches. I ducked across sand dunes and Henk walked around the top of the island. I met him on one of the western beaches. We were keen to see the Antony Gormley cast iron statue which we could see on a hilltop in the distance. The lady at the Guernsey Tapestry had told us about it.

It is a figure of a solitary man and it is part of the Islands and Art initiative which invites artists from all over the world to work in the Bailiwick. Gormley is famous for his statue, “Angel of the North” at Gateshead in North East England which we have seen. From the sculpture’s hilltop vantage point we walked through country lanes back to the harbour where we had a very tasty lunch of prawns and scallops at The Whitehouse Hotel.

We followed this with a Strawberry Heaven made up of Guernsey cream, strawberry and vanilla icecream and wafers. It was delicious and we didn’t feel too guilty eating it after having walked over the island. When we emerged from lunch we were amazed at how far the tide had gone out. We had to walk ten minutes further south from the harbour to a another pier for the ferry to pick us up. The harbour where we were originally dropped off had no water around it at all. When we returned to Guernsey

past an empty harbour and walked along the very attractive High Street which was now busy after the Easter break.

It looked very different with the busyness of people and the sun being out. Tomorrow we have booked tickets to Sark and we are looking forward to it after seeing it on the program “Coast” and Martin Clune’s program “Islands”.