Today is one of the two fine weather days forecasted for my stay so I took full advantage of the opportunity to do a coastal walk: the southwestern coast from Brook to Alum Bay.

I’d hoped to view the dinosaur footprints (really!) at the start of my walk but I didn’t factor in the tides so this is what the internet says they’re supposed to look like, and what I’m going to say is one…

A cool, misty and blustery morning, it was nonetheless a brilliant walk along the occasionally eroding coastline to Freshwater Bay.

Then a mile up in the rain and mist to the monument to Tennyson that dominates Tennyson Downs.

Then another mile and a half down to the old gun batteries guarding the Needles. We’re allowed one little viewpoint to see the famous rock stacks, the National Trust holds the rest captive behind their entrance gates.

Around to Alum Bay where I hopped on the bus back to Newport, then another to East Cowes to visit Osborne House – Queen Victoria’s residence. She and Prince Albert built it in the 1850’s as a summer home and she spent the last few decades of her life living there in perpetual mourning.