Seldom seen coastline at La Moye

I finally got to see a stretch of coastline that had eluded me for years. There's a bit of a gap in the cliff paths by the prison. From the west you have to head inland past the 'golfball' radar (with a tantalising bunker on the headland which can't be easily reached, let alone whether by trespassing on private land or not), go past the prison with the sea views some distance away, and finally rejoin the cliffpaths at 'Ficquet' on the way to Beauport.

From the corner of the prison there is a private road leading to houses and a bunker used by the local ham radio club. From there, a gap to the side of a fenced-off farm track once took me down here...

.. around to the right... but the last time I was here I was too tired to try seeing if there was a way through the trees. But a friend of mine recently had a go at this piece of coast, and advised me to have a go.

Thanks also to evidence of a path on 'satellite' maps, I found it was indeed easy enough to get through the trees. You can rely upon anglers to create paths to all parts of our coast in their quest to find secluded spots for great fishing!

Even by the last of the fields, the views are looking promising.

We emerge out of the woodland (packed with squirrels!)...

.. and a well-worn track cuts through the 'hottentot figs' (that's one of those words that can make you feel guilty just typing it. Oh, and don't look up 'hottentot apron' if you blush easily).

(looking back) The path can get a little close to the cliff edge, but nothing too unusual to a seasoned walker.

The end of the path - it's just rocks and deep ravines. No easy way to the west. An official cliff path would have to head up over the top of the headland, if the landowners could be persuaded to share their sea views with us peasants :)

And now you can enjoy the tranquil setting with great views.

Zooming in... La Cotte, the famous cave of prehistoric remains.

Ouaisne peeks through the rocks.

Two towers at Noirmont, and the rocks of the Violet Bank far beyond.

I recommend the walk, if you want to take your chances with private land (?). I did hear there wasn't actually any Law of Trespass in Jersey though ;)

By the way, is anyone else having trouble uploading pics to blogs? It's getting very silly now how complicated it is becoming. I hope you appreciate the effort involved :
a) take memory card out of the camera, insert into USB adaptor, load onto main off-line PC
b) select anything worth publishing, rotate (to level up) as needed (usually every damn time!), adjust contrast/brightness/gamma, colour balance, crop, resize down to web-size, save.
c) copy a folder-full to be published onto 'clean' USB stick to take to an online device for uploading to internet
d) load onto a non-Windows device. This one has a problem selecting more than one pic at a time in the blog posting upload dialog, so I need to pass onto another machine...
e) copy onto a 'dirty' USB stick (could be infected for all I know).
f) take the USB key to an old laptop, online. (by using two USB sticks via a Unix-based intermediate machine, hopefully any Windows infections won't get passed on?)
g) try to upload to a new blog posting. Fails. Pics don't appear in the posting, but do go into the web album elsewhere...
h) go back to the non-Windows device, load up the draft posting again, select the new pics from the web album (from the far end of hundreds that take an age to display) and finally get to see them in the posting.
i) Working on whichever machine is more comfortable, charged and connected ... labour away at clicking each pic, selecting small size and left alignment, add a single character of text while I still have a chance, because often if you try to add something later the cursor won't go where you want it to - needs messing about in the HTML editor :(
j) at last I get to write a bit for each pic (replacing the single character added earlier), trying to make things flow and give the reader a sense of place and direction. And try not to give away any clues who or where I am, in case I've ever upset any local psychos - and because I like to wander around totally incognito.
k) These days I seem to need to re-order the sequence because the  pics don't display in the order I carefully named the shots! Not easy! I have to do it via HTML editing because the 'compose' view often breaks things :(
l) add div and /div sections in the HTML because long bits of text bleed into the next one, and there's no easy way to force a blank line!
m) then I can finish off by setting labels, location, and... publish!
n) sit back exhausted and wait for one or two comments, wonder why all those hits don't generate more comment :)

I guess it's still a joy to publish things, even after all this time!

Egypte, Ayton, Lair and Les Rouaux

Let's have a look down our own "Egypt" - starting from the end of this road (Streetview)...

I see no desert or pyramids, but hey.

The footpath is actually a track, navigable by a robust vehicle, all the way down to the memorial that we'll see in a moment. From a bend in the track, before we've dropped too far in altitude, we get a glimpse along the coast eastwards to Vicard Pt. (Bing sat view)

On the inland side of the next run of track, an old ruin. Hard to not try to imagine who lived here, when, for how long, how they lived, etc. What would they make of their old fireplace now? :)

Before heading down the final straight(ish)...

.. another path heads up to the east and it's quite a trek to Bouley Bay.

Bluebells by the stream.

.. and we finally reach an old cottage and war memorial at Petit Port.

The view.

Dedicated to the British and French commandos who landed here in Christmas 1943 for a  reconnaissance raid called Operation Hardtack 28. Commanding officer Captain Philip A Ayton was seriously wounded by stepping on a landmine as the group returned to the beach. Sadly he died the following day.

More recently, a bench dedicated to the Special Boat Service.

An old cottage now called Wolf's Lair, maintained by the Jersey Canoe Club.

Wonderfully peaceful place for a camp fire.

Looking east.

The path down to the beach is part path, part stream. Tricky!

Leaving Petit Port behind, it's now just standard cliff path (looking back, trying to make use of the yellow gorse in the shot)...

.. with an old section too close to the edge, now cordoned off and re-routed.

This coastline is "Les Rouaux", and we're heading west towards Belle Hougue Pt.

They hover in one place so well that it's not too hard to take a snap.

At this time of year the grass isn't too trampled, so it's like a nice green carpet sometimes - and the bracken hasn't taken over the slopes yet. It gives the north coast a quite different feel to what you see later in the season, so it's well worth a hike on a nice day.

From here you can keep to the footpath to Bonne Nuit, or one long straight climb takes you back up to a corner of La Rue d'Égypte (Streetview).

Misc, load of bollards

 Time to get out of the way some misc shots from the last few weeks...  Grouville beach and common...

 .. closer.

 You don't see so many of these any more, so I thought I'd snap one for old times sake, while there's still one left (Rozel - also one at La Place).

 Looks so lonely without anyone in costume around it :)

 The joy of Jersey, you drive around a corner in a lane and suddenly a view like this presents itself.

 The Dolmen Hougue des Geonnais - I can't help thinking it was a bit more open with less gorse around it last time I was there a few years back?

 Having found a way down a farm track (or three) to the coastal path, a quick shot of the coast in the evening light...

 .. Devil's Hole from a distance...

 .. and the reservoir building at Mourier Valley (there's often a good waterfall here, when the water table permits, going over the cliff onto the pebble beach).

 A tower in Grouville that's currently involved in plans to build a load of new homes around it.

 The path from the slipway near the Seymour Inn, starts as it means to carry on, but then gets narrower and narrower with hedges intruding, and finally gets impossible so we have to climb down to beach level (tide permitting of course).

 Eventually you end up on the beach for lack of a path, but you can nip back to the main road some way before Le Hurel Slip, using this footpath, to shorten a quick circular walk.

Originally, Oxford Road was a fairly long and winding affair, shown in yellow here... (Also in orangey colour, L'Avenue et Dolmen du Pré des Lumières and La Rue Le Masurier which are nearly 20 years young... they were created in the mid 1990s, the Coop Grande Marche was opened in Nov 2001, and the roads officially classified as Main Roads in 2002, La Rue Le Masurier now being part of the tortuous route of the circulatory systems of the ring road)...

 ... it cut through the middle of the Gas Place car parks. Now the new Town Park has done away with a stretch of it, leaving us with an absurd little stump of Oxford Road separated from the rest! Perhaps it could be more logically incorporated into Robin Place?

 Still, at least it's not the shortest road in Jersey, which possibly goes to Le Passage Gosset by the museum - little more than a parking space!

 While we're in the new park, here's the view towards David Place showing a path on what was part of Oxford Road...

 .. and the other way, a view featuring what's left of the gas holder - for how long?

 A park of tellytubby grassy knolls and some art installations. Definitely worth millions ;)

 .. except for local businesses who found their customers can't get there easily any more. The cafe here is still going, but the hair salon closed. Note also the over-the-top expensive paving, only recently finished and already marked by tyre rubber. No expense spared, but give us a pavement way too wide and do away with even more parking :(

 As if it wasn't bad enough, now it's sprouted some large signs!

 Railings, railings, railings...

 .. the spread of micromanagement and more and more bollards...

 .. now making an utter eyesore of the Weighbridge!

 Dear oh dear oh dear ... was the occasional parking there really so bad that this is better?!

Trust a private development to make their bollards interesting - this new batch at new offices on the old Swanson's site next to Payn St. (Esplanade to Seaton Place)... nicely varied and subtle... 10/10.