On Riding the Isle Of Wight

Chilly air hit our faces while we stood on the ferry deck heading towards the Isle of Wight from Southampton. Our weekend adventure had begun. Once we set foot on land in Cowes we made our way to the first sign that would lead us around the island. We knew we wanted to go west, towards the Needles where we planned to have lunch. The floating bridge took us from East to West Cowes where we had to tackle our first hills.

Other than expected we were not able to ride the coastal path, as it was for hikers only, so we took the on-road path which was well sign-posted. It mainly took us along quite roads, however the route was not short of uphills. The followed the white on blue signs that took us counter-clockwise around the island (the clockwise path has blue on white signs). We left the route occasionally to view the Needles and other sights that were not on-route.

The journey went pretty smoothly until dawn set in. We were planning to stay at “The Orchard” camp site, near Niton, however, to our surprise it was no more than a patch of grass with an ugly drinking water tap. No camper was to be seen, lonely and dark. As it was getting dark and our legs getting weak we needed to decide whether to stay on this site or find an alternative. The closest campsite seemed to be about half an hour ride away, in Wroxal. My God, can we be wrong? Oh, yeah! Not only the half hour took us more like an hour and a half but damn it, the ZigZag road lived up to its name. As we were zigzagging up the mountain in the dark we finally got closer to a campsite where we stayed overnight. As it was off-season the campsite (which featured a pool, a bar, and a little shop) was mostly empty and very clean. After a nice hot shower and an awesome camp dinner we drifted off to sleep.

 

Isle of Wight cycle route

(click to download kml file to view in Google Earth)

 

The next morning we set off around midday and we cycled all the way to the eastern part of the island, Bembridge. From then on it was easy peasy, lemon squeazy. The hills were no more than little bumps and our legs just rode us forward trying to find more cowes.

Once we reached Cowes (where no cows were to be found) about four hours ahead of schedule only the ferry boat stood between us and the end of a spectacular weekend. The total distance on the island was 126km, with 2630m of climbing. 

Go, go Big-O…

P.S. And don’t forget to check our photos.

~ by pmatos on September 18, 2008.