In Royal Footsteps-southern England and the long way home.

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A lot of information given.
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Now some of mrsdrron's flowers.
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Bees and other animals love this plant.
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Time now to walk back to the apartment and get ready to go out to dinner.
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Interesting cloud patterns.
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One of the neighbouring houses.
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Dinner was at Lifeboats.A pub with a great view.
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The food was quite reasonable.Started with deep fried whitebait which was excellent.I then had the cod and chips because they had sold out of sea bass which did look a bit nicer.
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Mrsdrron had crumbed prawns and sweet potato fries.She liked them.
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I washed mine down with a couple of pints of local Fuggle Dee Dum beer.I liked it and here is a picture of a bottle I took earlier.
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The next day we drove around the Island.I was not driving so lots of random snaps.First in Ryde.
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And looking back to Osbourne House.
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That is driving back along the pier.Beside the roadway are the railway lines that serviced the rail ferry.A rail motor still meets the fast ferry at the elegant station.
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The Isle of Wight has the last commercial Hovercraft service in the world.Appropriate as the first hovercraft was built in East Cowes in the 1950s.This service has been running for 54 years and it only takes 10 minutes to Portsmouth.
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Through the quaint village of Brading.
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To the original seaside resort town-Sandown as the train goes here.
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Ah! Summer in England.
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We continued along the southern coast.
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Now heading west on the south coast.
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On the next headland from that last pic we came to a parking spot with good views.
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But it was also where several public paths met and a bus stop was there.Plus an organisation had bought the property extending the network.
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A little further on another turnout overlooking the village of Ventnor.
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Sad isn't it.
The village looked nice and we all felt like a coffee so down we went.
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Our coffee place.Was good.
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So more coincidences.Ventnor has a link to Brissy.

 

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An interesting building-a bridge to what could be the best view point.
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But now the rain came.
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Sometimes they put buildings on the wrong side of the road!
Now it was Sunday and the cyclists and walkers were all out.rain doesn't stop them.There were about 30 of these cyclists each with the same top.They were spread out like this so had to overtake each one individually.Unfortunately all us Sunday drivers were out too so it took some time.
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This part of the coast is known for dinosaur footprints.However we gave them a miss as the weather worsened.
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We then did a slight detour to a pub that was well reviewed for lunch.The rain began to ease.
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We began sharing plates of roasted sardines and garlic prawns.Forgot to take pics but at least something left on the prawn plates.Both were very good.
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Mrsdrron enjoyed her lobster.
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I made the wrong choice with fried whitebait and calamari.Very dry and a bit tough.
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My BIL enjoyed his fish whilst my sister enjoyed her Sunday roast lamb.For some reason served with a huge Yorkshire pudding.
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We then went to the Needles,the westerly tip of the Isle of Wight.
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For some reason very few were interested in the open vessel run around the point.An open top bus was running to the battery and a few brave souls went.
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Marconi supervised the building of a Wireless Telegraph station here.It is quite likely his 2 main assistants were related to mrsdrron.Her father was a Kemp,her mother a Paget.
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There were a few tacky activities here including a slow go kart track featuring a volcano issuing smoke every few minutes.
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We now set out for Carisbrooke castle in the middle of the Isle.Load limited bridges are not very strong around here.
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A church in the village of Carisbrooke.
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A view point for the castle.
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Across the road from the viewpoint is the Carisbrooke Priory.It says it is a house of prayer with a shop with lots of second hand books and local crafts.But only open Tuesday to Friday.
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Time for the castle.
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And the views before you enter.
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Princess Beatrice,Victoria's youngest chil,was the Governor of the Isle of wight from 1896 until her death in 1944.She used the castle as her summer residence until 1938.The castle traditionally was used by the Governor.She developed a garden inside the walls.
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Now Beatrice's son Maurice was killed in the first battle of Ypres so I thought this staue may be of him.
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However it was added much later and is General Jack Seely on Warrior his horse from 1914-1918.They were in the last cavalry charge of the war in 1918.Warrior was bred on the Isle of Wight and came back home.In 1922 Warrior was the winner of the Isle's Point to Point race-amateur horse racing.
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There were lots of fig trees.Sadly no ripe figs!
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The donkey's stables.
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