Channel Island Way

The Channel Island Way is a bit different. It follows the coast, or as near as it can get, of five of the Channel Islands: Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and Herm, and given that you need to use a boat or plane to get between the islands, there is not a fixed starting point or order. Everyone also comments on how different each of the Channel Islands is, so there is great diversity, both in the walking and in the cultures of the islands you are visiting.

What the islands share is the fact that they are British dependencies, but much closer to France than to England. I haven't really quite worked it out yet - they speak English, with an English accent, yet the place names and street names are French. They are not part of the UK, but instead are administered as the Bailiwick of Jersey and the Bailiwick of Guernsey (which includes Alderney, Herm and Sark - though some aspects are different e.g. Sark is feudal, with no cars allowed).They have their own postal systems and mint their own money. In the Channel Islands this is transferrable with UK sterling; not back home though - our local shops would probably regard Guernsey's pound notes as about as useful as Monopoly money!

We started the Channel Island Way as part of a delightful long weekend on Alderney in April 2014. The island is only 3.5 miles by 1.5 miles, so the path round the island is only 11.5 miles, but we spread it over two days to allow ourselves time to potter and to visit places we passed en route, including a couple of restored German bunkers from World War II and a selection of Victorian forts. The island was heavily fortified in the 19th Century, when British relations with France were not at their best, and in 1940 the islanders all evacuated and the Germans took the island over.

We also found some lovely inland paths, visited the Alderney Museum and the part restored water mill, enjoyed pleasant meals at the Georgian House (where we were staying) and Mai Thai, plus "afternoon tea" at Jack's Brasserie. The weather was very kind to us and there were wonderful wildflowers and birds for company (including the gannets from L'Etac, just off the west coast). The icing on the cake were our flights to and from the island, on Aurigny's little 15-seater trislanders, from Southampton, with superb views of the Isle of Wight. On the way out we were at the front of the plane and on the way back we had the added pleasure to of being on 'Joey' (G-JOEY), the star of the 'Little Yellow Plane' series of children's stories. The trislanders are to be retired later in 2014, so it was a definite once-in-a-lifetime experience.

We returned to the Channel Island Way for a week's holiday in March 2015, staying at the lovely Havelet Hotel. The weather on this occasion was rather mixed but we managed to walk around Guernsey, Herm and Sark. We had been anxious that Guernsey would feel very heavily built up relative to Aldernery, but the cliffs along the south coast were, in places, remote and wild - with lots of descents and ascents. It was glorious walking. We walked around the rest of the island on two very windy days, so the seas were spectacular. So the walking was excellent through and through. We used Guernsey's brilliant buses (£1 for any journey on the island) and staying in St Peter Port, admittedly up a very steep hill from the centre, also meant that we had easy access to a huge range of restaurants; we particularly enjoyed Village East. Of the journey back from Guernsey to Stansted, the less said the better (our flight was delayed then cancelled; we were put on a flight to Gatwick then bused around the M25 in the rush hour, making us about 6 hours late overall).

It is only 4 miles around the coast of Herm and it only took us a couple of hours, on the morning of Saturday 28th March, to walk round. We'd had the outbound ferry entirely to ourselves, and we walked about three quarters of the way around the island before we saw another person. Perhaps others were put off by the weather (misty) and the weather forecast (wind and rain), but the mist burnt off and we were on the ferry back to Guernsey before the wind and rain came, The island has cliffs to the south, with good views to the private island of Jethou, and glorious sandy beaches to the north. We loved it.

We had worried that Sark would be a tourist trap, and in the summer I suspect that it is. However, again there were not too many people about when we were there (Monday 30th March), and the locals were extremely friendly. Uncertainty about wind strength and whether the final ferry of the day back from Sark would run meant that we returned to Guernesy two hours before we had expected to, but we still had time to follow the whole route of the Channel Island Way on Sark and to potter around a little. There is not a continuous footpath around Sark, but we were on footpaths more than I'd expected, and it was glorious walking.