Day Fifteen - Jersey - 17 April

We woke to a very grey, wet day and decided that it was a good day to do the museums. Whilst on the bus into St Helier the sky had cleared to a sunny, breezy day and we changed our plans. We wanted to “make hay while the sun shines”. We first had to find a Vodafone-equivalent shop at St Helier to sort out the problems we were having with the sim card. After this was done we just had to have a coffee and cake before setting off to Elizabeth Castle.

The tide was at its lowest at eleven fifteen and this gave us two hours to safely walk to and from the castle situated off the coast from St Helier. The town of St Helier is named after the Saint who apparently lived and died on the site of the castle in the sixth century. In the middle ages a priory was built in honour of the Saint. During the occupation of Jersey between 1940 and 1945 extensive fortifications were added by the Germans. We are constantly amazed how rapidly and how far the tide goes out and how quickly it comes in. The wind on the dry walkway to the castle was quite strong and we were mindful of the tide times to ensure we gave ourselves plenty of time to walk back to the mainland. We were told by the ticket office that any visits to the island would be cancelled after one fifteen due to tidal conditions and high winds. We made it back to the mainland at twelve thirty which was just in time to catch the Red Explorer Bus to the northern part of the island. We went to the end of the line and got off at the La Mare Wine Estate, St Mary‘s.

This was quite unplanned but a pleasant surprise and we spent a lovely afternoon on a tour of the estate tasting their wines (well, I was!) hand-made chocolates, fudges and a Jersey speciality, Black Butter. It’s a traditional spiced Jersey apple cider preserve made with apples, black treacle, liquorice, cider, brown sugar and spices. It tastes like fruit mince and one national journalist described it as ‘Christmas in a jar’. We had a cream tea at the estate’s restaurant and instead of jam I had the Black Butter on my scone. It’s very tasty.

There were a number of signs on the estate describing the wine growing process. One sign highlighted the friendly rivalry between Jersey and Guernsey. The old saying said, “If you can see Guernsey it’s going to rain. And if you can’t see Guernsey it’s raining already.” However, in Guernsey they have a notice which says, “It’s a lovely day when you can’t see Jersey”. Before we caught the four fifteen bus back into St Helier we walked from the wine estate to the cliff path which was about ten minutes away. We wanted to see Devil’s Hole. To the north we could see Guernsey and Herm.

The bus from the estate drove us back through Jersey peak hour which means a lot of stopping and going on the very narrow, high-walled lanes whilst the drivers take turns in letting each other proceed or otherwise. The drivers seem to come within a whisker of scraping their vehicles but it all seems to be done calmly and politely. When we arrived back at St Helier at five o’clock I immediately stepped onto a bus to return to St Aubin and Henk walked the five kilometres back to the hotel. Due to the peak hour traffic I only arrived at the hotel ten minutes ahead of Henk. We had dinner at The Tenby which is a St Aubin’s eating place overlooking the pretty harbour.