Herm

Herm’s own publicity describes the island as 'paradise found'. It is certainly a magical place, perhaps especially on the day we visited because it was misty when we arrived and for most of the morning it felt as if we had the island to ourselves. The weather forecast was pretty dire for the afternoon, so we decided to catch the 8.30 ferry from Guernsey to Herm (as planned) but to return on the 12.35 ferry rather than waiting around into the afternoon. In better weather we’d have stayed all day, but the island is only 1.5 miles by 0.5 miles, so we knew we should be able to walk around it in a morning.

We ordered an early room service breakfast at the Hotel de Havelet and it appeared spot on time, though the large bowls of cereal and fruit rather defeated us. We walked down to the Inter-Island Quay, not really quite sure where we were meant to be going (the kiosk that sells tickets in the summer was not open). We found a little waiting room and sat there for a while, then we watched the Sark ferry leave and the Herm Trident ferry arrive at the Inter-Island Quay. We descended to a lower platform to reach the ferry. We bought our tickets (several pounds less expensive than we’d expected) and embarked. We were joined by a sack of post and a few parcels, but we were the only passengers on the ferry. We left the large ferry lounge empty and went onto the upper deck. We left St Peter Port past Castle Cornet.

The ferry takes about 20 minutes to get to Herm, and the route takes you past the small islands of Crevichon and Jethou. Jethou is leased to Sir Peter Ogden, businessman and philanthropist, known to me because of the work of the Ogden Trust in promoting the teaching and learning of physics.

The usual landing point on Herm is the harbour, unless it is low tide (which it was) in which case you land on the delightful Rosiere Steps. We disembarked and a rather larger group of people got on the ferry for the return trip; we watched it leaving Herm and passing Jethou.

The south of Herm has cliffs whilst the north is known for its vast sandy beaches. We were nearly at the south-most point, and we were soon on the path heading around the island in an anti-clockwise direction.

The path ascended and descended gently, and rounded the island to Belvoir Bay. Here there was a path back across the island to the harbour (which we didn’t take) and steps down to the beach (which we did). We had good views to the rocky island of Putrainez.

We continued northwards and reached the amazing Shell Beach. We went down onto the beach, then returned to The Common and continued to walk north, with views to an off-shore lighthouse. We turned to the west across The Common, now above Mouisonnière Beach. We were supposed to pass The Obelisk; somehow we didn’t, but we could see it in the distance. The Obelisk is a lump of granite which replaced a Neolithic monument, which had been removed by Herm’s quarrymen; without it the fishermen were missing a day mark.

We eventually turned to the south, past The Bear’s Beach and Fisherman’s Beach to the Herm Village. For the first time since reaching Herm, we saw other people! We stopped for a cup of coffee at The Mermaid Inn, then we visited the shops (we didn’t buy anything).

We had time to kill before the ferry was due, so we walked inland up to The Manoir (now mostly holiday cottages) and St Tugual’s Chapel, in the middle of the island.

We weren’t sure whether the ferry would come to the Harbour or Rosiere Steps, so we waited in between.

The ferry came into the Harbour and there were a surprisingly large number of passengers on the return journey. It turned very wet and windy, so we sat inside as the ferry bumped across the waves. All went well until just outside St Peter Port harbour when we suddenly came to a halt. We could see a big vessel manoeuvring in the harbour and it turned out to be the brand new Condor Ferry, on its second day in service. It also turned out that it had hit the harbour in the wind and sustained damage, so it had to come out of service again. Not great!

We had a late lunch in St Peter Port then returned to the hotel to shelter from the now distinctly inclement weather.

To see more of our photographs on Herm, click here.