Being a small island with an area of 384 km2 , the Isle of Wight is surrounded by beaches on all sides. We must have been to all of them, I think, because most of my photographs have something to do the seaside. Not all of the beaches are to our liking -- some are pebbly, some are sandy, some are too crowded, some are rugged, some of outstanding -- but we all agree that we like the beaches on the southern end of the island the most.
My recollection of this holiday is mostly about water. Not surprising at all, is it? Besides, spending lots of time on beaches, we also spent a lovely evening in a town with a lovely pier.
We also went on a chain ferry to cross a small river on the Isle of Wight. I had not been on one before so that was quite exciting. There are not many of them left in the UK. The ferry carries passengers and a few vehicles across the river each time. The crossing took about 15 minutes. While we were on board the ferry, some school children were just coming out from school and boarded the ferry with us. They were very friendly, which is always a nice thing to see. We get the sense that life on the Isle of Wight is about five years behind that of the mainland, which is not necessarily a bad thing at all.
The other things that I remember well is the food we had. We usually eat home cooked food and I am not a big fan of serving up sandwiches, if I can help it, so our "holiday food" has been an interesting change from our usual diet.
The biggest joy for me on this trip has been to bear witness to the close father-and-son relationship between Tortoise and Tiger. They spent most parts of the holiday doing things together -- horse riding, kayaking, playing on the beach, walking, rock pooling, and generally just being with each other.
This post concludes the series of our summer holiday on the Isle of Wight, which you can read about here. After a very relaxing week of vacation, it's time we head home and start work again.
While Queen Elizabeth II and her family spends much of their summer at Balmoral Castle these days, Queen Victoria and her family used to spend quite a bit of their summer at Osborne House. The size of the house is quite grand but the interior is quite sparse (when compared to the grandeur to the likes of the Rothschilds' house, Waddesdon Manor). As Queen Vic used to sometimes receive foreign guests at Osborne, you can still see evidence of some the royal receptions in the state rooms. Being "The Empress of India" for a time during her reign, it is no wonder to see much evidence of India in the paintings and some of the decorations of the house. The most impressive room is one that is modeled after a palace in Rajasthan.
Osborne House was mostly used as a family holiday home for Queen Victoria. There is a room dedicated to the family tree of Queen Vic and I find it fascinating to learn that all the European monarchies, since then up until now, are in one way or another inter-related through marriages.
There is a Swiss Cottage, which is similar to a children's play house, in the grounds of the garden. The difference is that this children's summer house is the size of a modern house these days. When I read a sign board in the house that states that the cottage was built to be used 'for the children's education', I started to fantasise about how lovely it would be if I had an entire building dedicated to homeschooling Tiger...
What's more, the children even had a garden plot the size of a small orchard to grow their own fruits, vegetables, and flowers.
Further along in the grounds, not far from the cottage, we stumble upon a child-sized barracks fully equipped model fort, child-sized real guns (cannons), guardroom, drawbridge magazine, etc. They were set up for the children to play battle games. I think of how most children these days, if they are lucky enough to not be poor, have to contend with playing with plastic model soliders for a battle game. The fort and guns I saw before me just seemed unreal.
There is a private beach at the end of a long coastal path from the garden, which can be seen from the house.
It looks like a modified carriage on rails that was winched into the sea so that the queen could enter the water after changing into her bathing costume. There was obviously a different set of modesty standards back then with regards to how a lady should dress while swimming at sea so women in Victorian days used to swim in the sea fully clothed, much like strict Islamic women these days.
Queen Victoria spent her last days at Osborne House and passed away there. After she died, her body was transported back to the mainland in the Alberta Deckhouse, which was also kept on the grounds.
This post is part of a series about our summer holiday on the Isle of Wight. You can read the entire series here.
We visited the only botanical garden on the Isle of Wight. The garden has separate sections of plants that are grouped according to their regions of origin. As it was the height of summer, all the plants and flowers were in full bloom so we had a really good wonder in the garden. The most impressive section was the tropical greenhouse that was so hot
and humid that my camera misted up immediately inside so I could not
take any photo of the very exotic plants found there but I have a few photos of flowers to share:
The garden isn't very big (compared to the likes of Kew Garden) so we had time to walk down a path that starts at the bottom of the botanical garden that leads to a beach.
We were all really hungry by the time we reached the beach so we stopped at a beach-front cafe and ate a delicious, typically-beach-front meal of crab sandwich and crisps. Yum!
Once we've filled our tummies, it's off to the beach for the rest of the day! The boys hired a kayak and went paddling out at sea while my mother-in-law and I sat on the beach to relax and chat. I am fortunate to enjoy a very good relationship with my mother-in-law so it has been a real joy to start a family tradition of holidaying together.
This post is part of a series about our summer holiday on the Isle of Wight. You can read the entire series here.
This is a very well preserved windmill with all its machinery and interior intact. We were able to have a very good look at everything inside on its four floors and learned quite a bit about how the mill worked.
(2) St. Catherine's Oratory
This unassuming-looking oratory has quite an interesting history. Situated on a prehistoric burial mound, it was once used as chapel with an adjoining lighthouse.
Only the one tower is left so there isn't really much else to see at this site. However, since it is situated on top of a huge mound, it took us quite a while to make the steep climb. The surrounding scenery, as we saw on our way up, was breathtaking.
(3) Hanover Point
This is one of a few places on the island where we were told we could find fossilised dinosaur footprints. I was slightly skeptical as to whether we were going to see any by ourselves, since you really have to know what you're looking at to identify a genuine dino footprint from a clump of mud and stones.
We were there towards the end of the day and were able to catch a very beautiful sunset on the beach. The sign boards on the beach have very clear instructions and examples of how we can look out for fossils and dino footprints. The place is certainly rugged enough to have existed in prehistoric times. While Tiger spent his time digging on the beach, I spent my time looking for fossils. I managed to find a few fossiled seaweeds on rocks, and a few fossilised dino footprints. Wow, that was really amazing. What is really good about the experience is that people have followed the instructions on the sign boards and left the fossils on the beach, instead of taking them away, so that other people (like us) can enjoy the discovery for ourselves.
This post is part of a series about our summer holiday on the Isle of Wight. You can read the entire series here.
One of the most famous landmarks on the Isle of Wight is The Needles. No cars were allowed to park near it so we had to stop some way off and walk up up and along a cliff. It was quite a way up but the view of the surrounding landscape was well worth it.
Soon we reached The Needles Old Battery and New Battery, a Victorian coastal defence built to defend the country against invasion by sea by France. Fortunately, it was never used for its intended purpose. The site may not excite everyone, but for a military history buff like Tiger, everything at the site from its history and its infrastructure to its construction and equipments are extremely interesting.
We looked at all the exhibition rooms there and saw many detailed models of how the site was constructed. The model that shows a cross-section of the cliff on which the site was built, which explains how the cliff was tunnelled through and led out to the sea for transporting equipments, is especially instructive.
From the site, there are several different points to have a good look at the Needles. We saw it from the underground tunnel at the Old Battery, from the lookout point at the New Battery, as well as from a viewing point further up the cliff. It is truly one of nature's marvellous piece of work.
This post is part of a series about our summer holiday on the Isle of Wight. You can read the entire series here.
We were out at sea very briefly, on board a ferry to the Isle of Wight, an island off the south of England.
The
day we set off was glorious. I even saw a hovercraft! Tiger and I had
made model hovercrafts for a science experiment a few years ago but I
hadn't seen an actual craft before so it was very exciting for me to see
one.
We were on our way to stay at Carisbrooke Castle!
Yes, you've read it correct. We didn't just visit the castle, we
actually lived inside the castle for the entire duration of our stay on
the island.
Everyone was really excited about our stay in the castle. For Tiger, it was a dream come true. Eversince his fascination with knights and castles started a few years ago, he has been wondering about the possibility of actually living in one. Now he was going to stay in one for a few days!
Throughout our stay Tiger volunteered to be the "gatekeeper" who locked the gates each night and opened them each morning.
The castle is significant in many ways, with a very long history. It has changed hands many times, from being a Saxon fortress to the summer residence of Queen Victoria's daughter. I suspect that is why most parts of the castle have been kept in a very good condition.
Not only the outer buildings were well kept, much of the inner parts of the castle was also well preserved.
There were many guns positioned at different parts of the castle, signifying its use as a fortress for defence at different times in history:
Other than the very impressive structure of the castle, there is also a very well organised museum within the castle grounds, in a house that part of a series of buildings that were formerly home to lords and governors of the island.
Part of the museum was dedicated to the English Civil War, showing the causes of conflict as well as the different armours worn by soldiers on both sides of the conflict:
The relevance of the English Civil War to this castle is due to Charles I being imprisoned at the castle for a short while during the conflict.
The bedroom in which he slept in was preserved:
It seems that Charles I wasn't treated too badly during his imprisonment at the castle, as he had a bowling green built especially for him during his stay!
Charles I was later executed in London, following his defeat at the Civil War. A chapel was built inside the castle as a place of remembrance for him. A copy of his death warrant, signed by Oliver Cromwell, was on display on the wall in the chapel.
As we were staying in the castle, we had the run of the grounds after it was closed to public after 6pm. During our stay we spent every evening walking the grounds, just to feel the atmosphere of being in a castle after dark. We had close-up looks of a few interesting nocturnal creatures:
The most fascinating creature we saw must have been the common glow worm. Tortoise noticed them first along the castle walls but Tiger was the one to identify them. We had not seen them before in the open, so this was another exciting first for us:
Being the ever-curious homeschoolers that we are, Tiger and I felt compelled to learn more about the common glow worms from the BBC Nature website and from reading a short article about them.
The common glow worms can be found just about anywhere in the UK, but I have never seen them before this -- probably because we don't go looking for them after 10pm, which is the time that their glow is most obvious. While we were at it, we also learned a little about bioilluminescence.
It has been a fantastic stay at the castle for all of us, but we also spent much time exploring the Isle of Wight. I shall share about our other island adventures in later posts.
This post is part of a series about our summer holiday on the Isle of Wight. You can read the entire series here.
