To Yaverland from St Helens Duver

This walk had a couple of frustrations, but otherwise it was glorious. The first of the frustrations related to footpath closures as a result of coastal erosion - and in one place to a section that probably should have been closed, especially at high tide, but wasn't. The amount of erosion on the Island is very sad, but in the light of it, the path closures are entirely understandable, though I struggled to find accurate information in advance, which would have been helpful, and may have prevented me from returning to the coast after a more inland section, only to find myself turning around and heading inland again. The second frustration related to my travel to and from my start and end points. Rather than parking at Yaverland, which was my original intention but would cost me more than seemed reasonable (£8.90 for 6-8 hours), I decided to park at the National Trust car park (free for me as a NT member) on the Duver at St Helen's (SZ637893) and catch the bus back to Yaverland before starting my walk. However, I missed the bus, largely because I miscalculated the timings but also because of problems with the parling machine in the car parkl. I tried and tried to scan my National Trust card, but every time it failed. Eventually, I took advice from a passing dogwallker, who appeared local, and she told me that the machine was broken, so the only option was to just leave the car - and that was what everyone else was doing..

Having realised that even if I ran to the nearest bus stop, I'd be very unlikely to catch the bus, I decided to do the walk in reverse rather than waiting maybe 50 minutes for the next bus. So I just set off walking. "The Duver" is an area of dunes ("duver" actually means "dune") and I was very soon on the coastal path. This led, by way of a causeway across Bembridge Harbour, to the outskirts of St Helens. We stayed here, with our children and their partners, for a previous family wedding in 2016; the wedding was the same weekend as the Isle of Wight Festival and this was the only accommodation we'd been able to find, largely because the letting agency had classified the location as St Helens, Lancashire. The house was much better than inauspicious start might have led us to believe. Now I spotted some town houses with views to the harbour that were reminiscent of the place we stayed, but I couldn't be sure.

I joined the Yar River Trail on the road around Bembridge Harbour.  Given I was walking on the pavement by quite a busy road, this section was remarkably enjoyable. To my left there were  interesting houseboats, with the harbour beyond, while to my right there were marshes, with higher land beyond. I reached the corner of Bembridge. It's an attractive enough large village, apparently home to many of the Island's weathiest residents and with a claim to be the largest village in Europe. The latter claim only becomes plausible it you rule out places like Great Baddow and Lancing in the UK, but the coastal path goes around three sides of Bembridge and, with the added complications, it felt as I spent so long walking around it that I could have believed the claim.

The coastal path is shown on the OS map as going down to the shore to the north east of Bembridge, but signs on the ground diverted me along a pleasant track to the landward side of East Cliff and Tyne Hall. I noticed that dog walkers, also using this track, stayed on it past Tyne Hall, but the coastal path was clearly signposted left onto another track heading towards the sea, so I dutifully turned left. Initially this was easy walking, but right at the bottom, just past a narrow path through trees to the right, the signposted path descended steeply to a beach. The beach was extremely narrow, presumably because it was high tide. A couple were coming towards me along the coast and they asked if I was familiar with the route and when I said that I wasn't, they explained they had found the next short section very difficult. I said that I thought I'd be OK,  but after a few minutes I decided that I was being stupid; I was having to scramble over lumps of concrete and slippery rocks, and it would have been very easy to sprain an ankle or worse. I retraced my steps, found that the narrow path through the trees was a dead end, so continued to and along the slightly inland route that the dog walkers were using. This brought me out onto a road where I turned left and descended to Bembridge's lifeboat station, where the path along the beach that I'd given up on would have emerged. 

I've walked past Bembridge Lifeboat Station before, with my sister in 2005. The lifeboat station has been rebuilt since then and the cafe near it, where I think my sister and I had lunch on that occasion, was all boarded up now, perhaps also as a result of damage from the sea. I pootled about a bit, watching the cargo ships out at sea. then cut inland of the Warner Hotel at the extreme eastern point of the Isle of Wight. The next bit was the most annoying of the walk with respect to diversions; though to be fair, my research had forewarned me of the next closure, but I'd promptly forgotten. I worked my way back to the coast, now to the south of Bembridge, only to find the onward coastal path closed. So back up the road I went, then turned left onto a residential road (Howgate Road) running parallel with the coast. It was boring and the road was climbing; had a bus come past, I would probably have abandoned the work and got on the bus. I'm pleased this didn't happen. Things were about to get better and the best of the walk was still to come. 

After my initial surprise at this latest diversion, I had remembered what I had seen on one of the websites explaining the path closure, and just where I'd expected it, on a bend in the road, there was a footpath clearly signed as the route of the coastal path, and I soon reached the end of the closed section, and rejoined the original route. It was a delightful stretch, undulating through trees and with occasional views back to what had clearly been a significant landslip behind me.  I occasionally had to divert slightly, but not much. To my right were the buildings and land of the former Bembridge School. The school only closed in 1995 and, through my sister's and niece's Isle of Wight connections, I know a surprisingly large number of ex pupils and staff - though I know very little about the school itself.  I emerged at the edge of Whitecliff Bay Holiday Park.  A sign explained that I was at the boundary (in geological terms, an unconformity) of the white chalk cliffs and younger redder, softer, clays and sands - it's the mirror image of the contrasting geology I'd seen a few days ago at Alum Bay (younger red rocks) and the Needles/Tennyson Down (older white rocks).

I ate my lunch at a conveniently placed bench and was entertained by low-flying light aircraft overhead, presumably coming in the land at the nearby Bembridge Airport. My onward route was not immediately clear (hint for others, you head left, towards the coast, and there is then a path running along the edge of the caravans. I was soon climbing up onto Culver Down, though to be honest the climb wasn't as difficult as I'd expected. There were lovely views behind me and soon I was at the top of Culver Down. I had expected to turn left and to circumnavigate the top and, with the benefit of hindsight, I wish I'd done that. However, the path was signposted straight ahead up to the monument, so I went that way. The monument commemorates Charles Anderson Pelham, 2nd Earl of Yarborough. I'd never heard of him; his main claim to fame seems to have been as first Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes.

From the Yarborough Monument,  the path descended steadily to the coast at Yaverland. There were occasional other walkers about, and one cyclist came past me, peddling his way up the slope! There were occasional diversions away from the coast, but it was easy walking. I was soon back at Yaverland where, once again, I had quite a long wait for the bus - plenty of time to enjoy my final ice cream of the holiday and to go down onto the beach for a while. The bus stop for the journey to Bembridge and St Helen's was on road up from the beach at Yaverland, round a slight bend, and when I got there I discovered that, from the bus stop, I couldn't see approaching traffic until it was almost there, and I reckoned that this meant that the bus driver wouldn't have been able to see me either. I didn't want the bus to sail past so, to be helpful and in self interest, I went to the corner so that I could see the bus as it approached. 

The bus was substantially delayed, so by the time it arrived I was even more determined that I would give the driver every chance to see me, and after indicating that I wanted to catch the bus, I had plenty of time to get back to the bus stop before the driver was ready to let me on. She proceeded to tell me off for doing what I had done and said that other bus drivers would not stop unless I was actually at the bus stop. She MAY have been right (and no doubt them's the rules), but I doubt her colleagues would be that inconsiderate; every other bus driver I'd encountered on my visit to the Island had been kindness itself. Given I was trying to be helpful and I don't like being told off in public, this was a disappointing final experience. Fortunately, I didn't react in the way I might have done a few years ago(!), and I had plenty of time to calm down as the bus got later and later as it made its way around the back streets of Bembridge.  

I got off the bus as close as possible to point where the path I had followed this morning reached the road from Bembridge to St Helens (SZ629886). I think a later bus stop is nearer to the car park where I was parked, but I wanted to retrace my steps across the Causeway. The tide was much lower than it had been this morning, which provided a good contrast with this morning's walk, and a nice end to my little holiday.  The clocks would "go forward" in the night and I was booked onto a ferry early tomorrow morning.

Following leg