Thursday, 20 May 2010

Summer Madness 2010 29th August - a mini-festival!

 This will be the second year this event has been held at Carisbrooke Castle.  Last year it was headlined by - guess who - yes, Madness.  This year the Modfather comes to the Isle of Wight to headline the event.  The line up for this mini-festival includes:

Paul Weller
Brand New Heavies
Imelda May
The Bees
Twisted Wheel
The Chords

and today The Coral have been confirmed.

At £40 for this one day mini-festival it looks to be excellent value and a great family day out.

Tickets are available at See Tickets now.  Click here to buy.

We'll see you there!

Friday, 14 May 2010

We're suckers for a sunset!

Took a walk along Cowes seafront last night.  This takes you past Egypt Point, which is a waypoint for sailors and also an excellent vantage point for the Round the Island Race, which takes place on June 19th this year.

We used the last of the light to capture a couple of photos from Egypt Point.  Hope you enjoy them!


Friday, 7 May 2010

A walk on Yarmouth's wild side

Lovely weather means more walks on the Isle of Wight.

We went out for a walk in Wight Nature Fund's Mill Copse, just outside of Yarmouth. Here's the location, which isn't available on Streetview as it's nowhere near a street!


View Larger Map

This mixed, ancient woodland is just outside of the harbour town, off the fantastic cycle-track that runs between Yarmouth and Freshwater.

The bluebells in the copse were almost at an end, but they were still providing a good carpet in some areas, off the lovely airy rides.




We walked up from the main entrance, to the top of the copse and then round to the right.

The main ride into the forest has a superb lining of mature conifers to the right of it.  If my sources are right, this is a Coast Redwood, which has a lot more growing to do yet!

This is as well as the more common oaks and coppiced beach elsewhere in the wood.

On the way back around the perimeter of the copse we also spotted a public hide, which looks out over the marshland, where we could see Canada Geese, Curlews, Moorhens, Coots and Egrets.  If you fancy a bit of birding this is a lovely spot to sit quietly and observe the birds attracted to the brackish marshes:


After some time spent quietly we walked back into town and enjoyed a Minghella ice cream from Gossips Cafe at the pierhead.  A cracking way to spend an afternoon around Yarmouth.

Now we've got a tip off about another hide in Alvestone, where there are supposed to be a lot of Red Squirrels, so that's lined up Sunday afternoon's entertainment!