Things to remember:
- It was a perfectly peaceful and unnervingly silent spot last night; spooky, even.
- I awoke in cloud and have spent a lot of the day in either it, or sea fret.
- I've stopped off at quite a lot at coastline car parks and spent a while at each with the bins looking out to sea (when the frets have allowed). Nothing new or unusual for the most part, but I did see and hear choughs and watched a few gannets diving.
- Worth a mention are Beach Buddy Bins. At many of the coastline car parks where the foreshore can be accessed are big roll-top type bins and these are accompanied by litter-pickers and bags. People are encouraged to collect beached rubbish and stick it in the bin. Simple and wonderful.
- Post lunch I visited a spot called The Chasms. And they really are. An area of sheer cliff top is accessed through a latched gate that carries a warning to be aware of the imminent dangers. They aren't kidding. The area is literally strewn with huge cracks in the earth that are just wide enough to swallow a human, and which plummet down into the earth further than it's possible to see. They're genuinely scary and have indeed swallowed humans and dogs. I tried to picture them (pic) but justice is far from done. It's more like you're able to walk on the tops of several very closely clustered sea-stacks. The whole thing genuinely made me feel queasy.
- By mid afternoon I'd made The Sound at the very southern tip of the island. The trip here was basically based in nostalgia. Back in 2003 Emma and I visited the splendidly and artfully nestled cafe that overlooks the Calf of Man several times between bike races. Nothing much has changed except the prices. I bought an Americano that almost doubled the cost of my entire trip.
- The waters ripping through the sound were particularly impressive. They were turbulent, complex, rough and swirling, and were firing swimming cormorants along at a rare old speed. The cormorants seemingly couldn't have cared less.
- At the spot shown, now. I rooted this one out whilst bumbling around this morning. It's totally out of sight and I haven't seen anyone at all since arriving. It has good views over some adjoining clearfell, the sea and open moorland, and is part of the Dalby Mountain nature reserve. Unfortunately, and probably because of the wind, cloud and rain I've seen virtually nothing all evening. Best sighting was of a fox moth caterpillar that looked like it had become accustomed to the hot dry weather of the summer and was now desperate to be finding somewhere, indeed anywhere to pupate.
Post composed at 21:00 on Monday 14th September from my intended overnighting spot N 54.15200°, W 04.71581° / http://maps.google.com/maps?q=loc:54.15200%2C-04.71581
