Isle of Man Extremities

  • Water Wheel
    Water Wheel
  • Anna and Morgan
    Anna and Morgan
  • Milntown Gardens
    Milntown Gardens
  • Stumped!
    Stumped!
  • Sculpture
    Sculpture
  • Sculpture
    Sculpture
  • Easter Egg Hunt
    Easter Egg Hunt
  • Tree House
    Tree House
  • Tree House
    Tree House
  • Tree House
    Tree House
  • Tree Bark
    Tree Bark
  • Fungi
    Fungi
  • Lighthouse
    Lighthouse
  • Isle of Man
    Isle of Man
  • Point of Ayre
    Point of Ayre
  • Maughold
    Maughold

Another glorious day on the Isle of Man – sunshine, blue skies, a cold wind, 4°C and snow-lined roads. I made an early start and headed out for a bike ride whilst Anna and Morgan had breakfast. My ride took me through Colby and into Port St Mary, along the coast road into Castletown and then an anti-clockwise loop of the Southern 100 loop. This was followed by a ride through Castletown past the airport and then up the Ballamodha straight to the South Barrule Plantation, before turning around and returning down the hill… There’s a Strava segment on this descent and I reckon I would have had it if it weren’t for the fact that I was stopped by temporary lights towards the bottom.

After I had some breakfast and a quick bath it was time to head off to the northern end of the island and the house and garden at Milntown. We wandered around the gardens and Morgan did an Easter egg hunt which was the main reason for heading here. We had a lovely lunch here as well, including a delicious Mississippi Mud Pie for pudding. As well as the Easter Egg hunt the gardens had some interesting sculptures and lots of benches made from trees but the plants were still in winter mode for the most part.

We then went into geocaching mode with the main caches on the hit list today being the most northerly cache on the island and the most easterly cache on the island. We stopped at a few others along the way as well, including another near the Point of Ayre and one just outside the churchyard at Maughold. The church itself was nice and the cemetery contained some really nice, very old Celtic burial crosses.

We also stopped at a cache on the promenade in Ramsey. We only stopped at it by chance and as we read the cache description it said that it was “inspired by and based on a cache called Assume Nothing Wales #2 Ivy”. That’s a cache that we hid not far from our house so we knew exactly where to look for this one. Stranger still was the fact that our cache was originally based on a cache that we had found here on the Isle of Man – it’s a small world!

Driving around the island there was still plenty of snow with some of it piled up high on the sides of the road where the ploughs have cut through it. The snow was easily 10 foot deep in places, towering over us as we drove through it. At one point a huge chuck of snow and ice fell off a tower of snow above is as we drove past, forcing me to swerve to avoid it. The roads themselves were clear though so I’m hoping to be able to cycle around the TT course tomorrow. I just hope no huge chunks of snow and ice fall on me whilst I’m on a bike.

Once back at Pats house I went for a little run around the local fields before dinner and chilling.

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Alan Cole

Alan is a Freelance Website Designer, Sports & Exercise Science Lab Technician and full time Dad & husband with far too many hobbies: Triathlete, Swimming, Cycling, Running, MTBing, Surfing, Windsurfing, SUPing, Gardening, Photography.... The list goes on.

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