St Helier; Saturday, 09 November, 2019

I had an early start as I wanted to pack as much into the day as possible, especially as the weather wasn’t forecast to be great. After a quick breakfast I headed out of the hotel and over to the bus station to pick up the bus out to Corbiere. The bus left St Helier in the dry, but not 10 minutes into the journey the rain started to come down and as the bus pressed on west across the island the rain only intensified.

By the time we arrived at Corbiere, the South Western corner of the island, there was a full on squall going on with strong winds, and an unpleasant mix of very cold rain with bits of hail embedded in it. I wandered down from the bus stop, past some of the bunkers that show testament to how fortified these islands were by the Nazi’s as part of their Atlantic Wall, and to the start of the causeway out to the lighthouse.

The causeway was clear, and in fact the tide was still falling, so I had hours of spare time to be able to wander out across the causeway to the lighthouse if I wanted, but looking at the waves pounding onto the rocks nearby – and with the foul weather from the sky – I though it probably wasn’t a good idea to go out – not least of all just for getting soaked by the rain.

I headed back up towards the bus stop and got there with about 10 minutes to spare before a bus back into St Helier, thankfully the stop had a shelter which at least protected me from the worst of the rain, if not from the biting wind or some of the ricocheting hail stones.

Back in St Helier I had about 30 minutes until my connecting bus, so I quickly popped into the neighbouring Costa Coffee for a quick lunch and was still back at the stop in the bus station with a few minutes to spare for my journey out to the Jersey War Tunnels – I decided that in this weather heading underground was probably the wisest move.

I’d visited the tunnels when I visited back in 2003, but it was clear that in the intervening years a large amount of work has been carried out on expanding the exhibits and interpretation boards, so there was a lot to see, even though it was a repeat visit.

I spent so long looking round the tunnels that by the time I finally emerged it was into a sky where the sun was threatening to break through and the pounding rain had reduced to a very light drizzle. By the time the bus heading north arrived 20 minutes later the rain had stopped, so I decided to hop on the bus and head on over to the North West coast of the island.

The bus dropped my off at Les Landes Common where I went for a bit of a wander, taking in the ruins of one of the many Nazi fortifications located on the common. From here there are also excellent views down the whole sweep of the West coast down to Corbiere lighthouse at the Southern tip. After a brief wander around the common I headed on down the winding hillside road down to the top end of the beach at L’Etacq to take some photos there before pickup up the bus that starts there back into St Helier.

Back in St Helier I quickly swapped buses onto the bus out to Gorey along the coast where I went to take some night time photos of the massive Mont Orgueil Castle and have a little wander around the harbour town. I also took the opportunity to stop at one of the very nice restaurants that sit below the castle looking out over the harbour for a very nice dinner.

Dinner completed I headed back to the bus stop and caught the bus back into St Helier and then walked over to the hotel for a quick night cap before turning in for the night.