So after almost three days in the hospital, I was set free around 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday. However, I have to go back on Friday for a quick blood test to make sure my red blood cell count continues to rebound. I feel pretty much back to normal (alright, I know some of you are saying I was never normal and I will give you that one) albeit a bit tired, but I am ready to get back to my trip.
I ended up moving hotels because La Pomme d’Or was fully booked past the date of my original stay, but the place I moved to about a block away is actually far superior from a room perspective as it is an apartment hotel so I have a living room, kitchen, bed and bath with bonus deck overlooking the harbour (this proved to be huge later on Thursday).
Anyway, with a couple days to kill in Jersey, I was able to finally see more of the island. First up on Thursday was a 2 hour ride around the east side of the island courtesy of Jersey Bus Tours, a small vintage bus that does an east tour and a west tour of the island. (Originally, I was going to go on a 6 hour small group tour around the island, but had to cancel that and could not reschedule as they were sold out so I found, what I believed to be, the next best thing. Turns out I was right.)
Now the bus could hold around 30 people, but today there was only six of us on the bus. Once on board, we were provided headphones that gave us a running commentary of the history of the eastern half of the island.
The tour started out by leaving St. Helier, passing by Liberation Square and the old steam clock before turning east along the coastline passing numerous rocky outcrops that were exposed because the tide was out. All along the coast we passed through tiny fishing villages with some beach front hotels thrown into the mix that seem to make up most of the population in the twelve parishes on the island.
As we reached Rocqueberg Point, we passed Witches Rock. Legend has it that the rock was a gathering place for witches and devil worshippers. There was also a story about some guy who was caught at the rock dancing with what he thought was beautiful women, but were actually old witches who had cast a spell on him. When his fiancé showed up, she threw a crucifix at the witches who disappeared and the man was released from the spell. OK then.
We also passed numerous 17th century towers (similar to what I saw on Sunday on my train ride to St. Aubin). The first tower was La Hocq Tower, which was constructed in the mid 19th century as part of Jersey’s coastal defense system. And as we continued up the stunning eastern coastline we passed the Royal Jersey Golf Club (links style course), which served as the forefront for Fort Henry constructed in 1772 and designed to guard the central coastline from attack.
We then reached the little town of Gorey, which is home to Mont Orgueil Castle sitting high up on the rocks overlooking the sea. The castle is over 800 years old, was the primary military seat of power and defense for Jersey for centuries with cliffs on three sides and the sea on the other. The castle lost its dominance due to advances in guns and gunpowder and was eventually replaced by Elizabeth Castle in 1594 as the primary defensive outpost.
The castle was hugely intimidating to look at, but in order to reach the castle you have to climb 200 stairs. And while I would normally not be intimidated by the number of stairs, I was told to take it easy for a few days so no stairs for me. (Fortunately, we did not have enough time to climb to the top anyway when we stopped at the castle on the return.)
From Gorey, we continued up the coast past the Archirondel Tower, a unique red and white tower that was painted in red and white in order to stand out on the coastline. The tower was the 22nd tower built on the island with construction commencing in 1772.
About an hour into the trip we reached St. Catherines Bay where we stopped for about 20 minutes before continuing on. There was a German war bunker at this location, but with only 20 minutes I did not think I had enough time to check it out. Instead, I spent about a few minutes watching two black billed magpies hop around on rocks above the bunker. Highly entertaining.
At this point, the bus reversed course and we headed back down to Gorey where we spent about 15 minutes wandering around the little town taking in gorgeous views of the castle before heading inland back to St. Helier.
The trip took us through some farmland (I caught sight of some jersey cows hiding behind some bushes), a number of small villages including Grouville, home to a gorgeous church.
Once we hit the outskirts of St. Helier, we passed gorgeous Davis Park before heading down the narrow St. Helier roads before reaching our original starting point.
Now once back at my little apartment, I learned that there was to be an air show today to commemorate the Battle of Britain. And just as a entered my apartment, the air show began and I had a prime view from the deck. I was able to watch vintage bombers do loops through the air, upside down flying and on and on.
However, the bonus of the day was the RAF’s equivalent to a U.S. fighter jet. I was sitting on the deck minding my own business completely unaware that the “Typhoon”, was about to do a flyover and when I say I jumped, I mean I JUMPED. Holy crap it was loud.
This guy put on a show for about 15 minutes and once he was done, the Red Arrows, similar to the U.S. Blue Angels began their show with nine aircraft flying into view spewing the colours of the British flag and doing pass by after pass by. It was absolutely fabulous … so my reward for having to stay in Jersey a few more days.
So on Friday, I continued with my tour of the island with Jersey Bus Tours by hopping on the bus again for a 2 hour tour of the west of the island. This time we had almost a full bus, but everyone was really good about hopping back on the bus once it was time to leave from each stop.
The tour began with a loop through St. Helier, before heading west along the waterfront retracing the path I had taken on Sunday on Le Petit Train to St. Aubin, including passing Elizabeth Castle in the glorious sunshine.
Once in St. Aubin, the bus took a right and drove away from the waterfront and through a heavily wooded area before heading up into the farmlands above St. Aubin. We passed by a number of farmhouses (with honour vegetable stands) before reaching our first stop, Noirmont Point.
The point, like so many of the waterfront cliffs on Jersey, had been used by the Germans during WW II as a lookout point with guns pointed to the sea. In addition, there were a number of bunkers in the area (but closed to the public).
Now it was incredibly windy at the point making it a bit tough to take pictures, but wind aside, the views from the point and to the right to Portelet Bay, where yet another tower sat in the middle of the bay were spectacular.
I ended up wandering around in the wind for most of 15 minute stop before hopping back on the bus, which reversed course heading back through the farmland before turning northwest passing Portelet Bay (which I could see from above at Noirmont Point). As we drove along the waterfront, there was yet another tower (there are a total of 24 towers on Jersey) and past incredible waterfront hotels and gardens and then up into the hills again past beautiful water view homes.
We wound along very narrow inland roads before reaching our second stop, La Corbiere Lighthouse dating to 1874 and which can cast a beam 18 nautical miles away.. I had passed the lighthouse on the trip from Guernsey to Jersey on Sunday so it was pretty cool to see the lighthouse up close.
I wandered around the rocks fronting the lighthouse some 300 meters away. It was incredibly windy, but it didn’t take away from the gorgeous views of the lighthouse. I then walked down the hill and spotted a monument to the safe rescue of all 307 passengers from the catamaran ferry Saint Malo, which had been travelling from the island of Sark to Jersey in 1995. Amazing given all the rocks in the area and what was apparently very rough seas.
I made a quick stop at an ice cream stand located in a trailer parked by the side of the road and order a jersey ice cream cone (salted caramel … yum) before hiking back up the road to our little vintage bus.
Once everyone was back on the bus, we headed down the hill and along a long strip of road fronting St. Ouen’s Bay. The bay was separated from the road by massive sand dunes that are under preservation protection by the government and are apparently the pride of the area.
And of course, we had to pass yet another tower. This one was known as La Rocco Tower and you can actually stay in the tower. (In fact, a number of towers have been converted into specialty lodging.)
From here, we turned inland and headed through low lying farmland and a handful of small villages before turning back towards St. Helier. Along the way, we passed two watermills, with the first being the only surviving working watermill, Le Moulin de Quétivel, which dates to 1309 and has been milling flour for almost 700 years. I would have loved to have stopped to take a look, but was happy to at least see it as we passed by. The second watermill was Le Moulin de Leq, which was just down the road from Le Moulin de Quétivel.
Once passed the watermills we turned to the right through some forested area and towards the waterfront reaching our starting point in St. Helier about two hours after we left.
Once back in town, I headed back to the hospital for my blood test. The blood test was quick, but I ended up waiting about three hours before I got the green light to continue on with my trip. So … tomorrow I head to Barcelona (a day earlier than planned had I gone to Nice.). I am going to relax on Sunday and then on Monday I will start with a series of tours in and around Barcelona. And while I have enjoyed Jersey, I just want to get the heck out of here and back to enjoying my trip.
