Gear Review – 5 Days Backpacking the Isle of Wight Coast Path
Saturday, 02 September 2017
Last month, Susan and I hiked the 65 Mile long Isle of Wight Coast Path over five days and four nights. We camped on three of the nights and stayed in a hotel for one after an equipment failure. We carried everything we needed with us and only purchased food along the trail. In this post, I am going to briefly summarise what worked and what didn’t and provide some feedback on what we thought about our gear and equipment. Shelter MSR Elixir 2 Person Tent (2015 Model) I bought this tent in 2015 and paid around £160 for it which included the additional footprint. It is a little heavy…
Isle of Wight Coast Path – Day Five
Tuesday, 08 August 2017
Day Five – Sandown to Ryde After a good night’s sleep at the hotel and porridge pots for breakfast, we ventured out on to the seafront at Sandown. It was blustery and the clouds in the sky were promising rain. We only had 11.5 miles to cover today but we didn’t want all of them to be in the rain. It didn’t take long to walk along the flat seawall and we were soon climbing up on to Bembridge Down and then Culver Down. There is a large monument on Culver Down, the Yarborough Monument, errected as a memorial to Charles Anderson-Pelham, the 2nd Baron Yarborough (later first Earl of…
Isle of Wight Coast Path – Day Four
Monday, 07 August 2017
Day Four – Cowleaze Chine to Sandown After a difficult night’s sleep we awoke to a cloudier, chillier morning than the day before. My Exped sleeping mat had developed a fault the evening before which meant I had to sleep lopsided all night and there was no possibility fixing it. Over breakfast we discussed the possibility of staying the night in an hotel rather than the planned wild camp. We packed up and continued along the Coastal Path to Chale before heading up to Blackgang and through a series of fields. From the high vantage point, we had a good view over St Catherine’s Lighthouse and the Undercliff. At St…
Isle of Wight Coast Path – Day Three
Sunday, 06 August 2017
Day Three – Freshwater to Cowleaze Chine We awoke to a glorious, sunny morning and after breakfast, I headed into Freshwater to buy some lunch and dinner for the day ahead while Susan packed up the tent. We picked up the Coastal Path at Colwell Chime and had an easy, enjoyable walk along the Seawall to the old lifeboat station at Widdick Chine before ascending to the road above. It was a short walk up cliff road before we were back on a footpath heading for Headon Warren. At Headon Hill, we stopped to admire the fantastic views of Alum Bay and The Needles. There were a few people here…
Isle of Wight Coast Path – Day Two
Saturday, 05 August 2017
Day Two – East Cowes to Freshwater Considering the noise, live band and the large number of people on the campsite, we slept well and awoke to glorious sunshine which meant an alfresco breakfast of porridge and coffee with a few brioche as a treat. The tent is easy to take down and pack away so it was not long before we were heading down the hill to the Floating Bridge, a small chain link ferry across the River Medina, and into Cowes. We followed the path down to the harbour and then along the esplanade to Egypt Point, the northernmost point of the Island, and then around to Gurnard. The…
Isle of Wight Coast Path – Day One
Friday, 04 August 2017
Day One – Ryde to East Cowes I will be the first to admit that the Isle of Wight Coast path was not particularly high up on my trekking bucket list. I knew that the path existed and that it was around sixty-five miles long but that was about it. Susan had planned a trip to Thailand but found herself with a spare week of holiday that she did not want to waste and had been looking at doing something short and inexpensive. I didn’t have any time off planned for August so Susan was looking at something she could do on her own and had started to look at…
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