Day Fourteen - Jersey - 16 April

We woke to a sunny and warmer day with low tide at ten fifteen. We thought we would take advantage of this and visit the Corbiere Lighthouse at the far south west of the island. At low tide you can walk out to the lighthouse across a causeway.

The causeway spends more time under water than out of it so we were lucky to have the tide right in the middle of the morning. At the beginning of the causeway there were warning signs for all visitors and the perils of crossing at the wrong time. There was also a memorial to a lighthouse keeper who drowned trying to save a visitor. There is no access to the lighthouse. We returned across the causeway to catch a bus to St Helier. Our destination was the Information Centre but we wandered the busy high street with its vast array of shops and eating places and had lunch before getting there.

We collected the pamphlets of the places we wanted to visit across the island and I had this brainwave of visiting the Jersey Pottery Center at Gorey Village which is on the east coast of the island. Our bus pass allows us to catch the local buses as well as Explorer buses of which there are three types - red, green and blue. Red is for favourite attractions, green for nature and heritage and blue for spectacular scenery. And just to confuse things all the buses both local and Explorer are painted light blue! After a day of travelling on the buses we think we have the hang of it. We missed the Gorey Village and got off the bus at Gorey Pier. We were pleased that we did as we came upon a beautiful harbour filled with boats and a castle, Mont Orgueil Castle, overlooking the bay.

We couldn’t resist taking lots of photos. We asked for directions to Gorey Village and realised why we had missed it as it is not on the main road. It was only a fifteen minute walk south of along the harbour. I asked a van driver where Gorey Village was and he said we were in it! His directions to the pottery centre were vague and we got lost only to find that after we sought clearer directions that the pottery centre had closed three months previously. We had planned to have a scrumptious cream tea as the photo in the brochure looked very yummy. Alas, it was not to be and we trundled back to the bus stop on the main road and headed back to St Helier. I then had the brainwave of having a tea at The Cabin overlooking the beach opposite our hotel. Alas, it was closed at four thirty. We headed back to our hotel - Henk to make tea in our room and me to the lounge to devour the papers. All was made up when we went to dinner at the Salty Dog Restaurant on the harbour at St Aubin. We had a delicious seafood dinner. We are only five minutes walk from the centre of St Aubin and its many restaurants. Last night we went to the Boat House Restaurant and it sits on St Aubin's Harbour wall overlooking all the little boats which at the time were sitting on their bottoms as the tide was at its lowest. We were entertained by three geese which have taken up residence in the harbour. Apparently, they can hold up the traffic while they argue with each other.