Isle of Wight 2010

Background

We'd both wanted to get out of London over the bank holdiday and had hoped to visit Cornwall. We decided to leave booking late so that we could see what the weather was like but that turned out to be a mistake. By 9:30pm on the Thursday the overnight sleep train from Paddington to Penzance had only one bed left and both National Express and Megabus had sold out. After a couple of hours of scrambling around we agreed upon the Isle of Wight instead.

Route

We decided to walk the West of the island because it is an area of outstanding natural beauty (no map on that site though!) and also hosts the needles, one of the island's main natural landmarks.

Our route takes us from Cowes along the North West coastal path and then slightly south to Newbridge to camp at the Orchards. The next day we head to The Needles and then along the South West coast down to Brighstone Holiday Centre.

There is a walking page on the official tourism pages for some other ideas but the brochure mentioned doesn't contain any routes.

Travel

There are good train links to London from both Portsmouth and Southampton. The ferries from Portsmouth go to Fishbourne whereas the ones from Southampton go to Cowes.

Trains to Southamton go regularly from London Waterloo (see National Rail Enquiries website) and take an hour and a half. From there you can get a ferry to Cowes with Red Funnel Ferries.

Travel within the Island

The official tourism website has information about travel around the island Quoting the website:

With up to 350 ferry crossings a day, it's simple to travel to the Isle of Wight, and once you are here, it is even easier to get around.

Only 2 hours from London, ferry routes connect directly with the road, rail and coach links to whisk you off to your Island destination. If you are not bringing a car with you, once ashore you can take advantage of the Island's comprehensive network of buses which are especially geared towards visitors.

The website for the Island's train service is here:

• http://www.southwesttrains.co.uk/island-line.aspx

with a map here:

There are also loads of taxis:

• http://www.iwight.com/travelInformation/gettingAround/taxi.asp

Bus information is here:

• http://www.iwight.com/travelInformation/gettingAround/buses.asp

There's a network map here (and a PDF on the page if you click the image):

Handily there is a Number 7 bus which goes every 30 mins and is close to our route on the evening of the first day and the whole of the second day so that we can jump on it if we abandon all hope of walking the route!

Camping

There is a list of campsites here:

• http://www.uk-sites.com/caravan_parks_and_campsites/camping_in_isle_of_wight.htm

We chose to stay in:

• The Orchards Holiday Caravan & Camping Park 01983 531331 (£30 per night for two people sharing a small tent)
• Brighstone Holiday Centre 01983 740244 (hard to get hold of)

Both of these places have swimming pools.

Maps

The best maps are probably on MultiMap, choose the OS Map view and you get Landranger and Pathfinder maps of the whole island.

Kit

Once again, here's my kit list:

• Kit List 2009 (OpenOffice format) or as a CSV file (can be read by Excel)

Here's information about the stove we used on the trip:

• MSR Wisperlite Internationale stove review