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Friday 15thAugust 2008
Swanage to Portsmouth and the Channel Ferry
No chance of back up from the car today as the route along the coast involved crossing onto the Isle of Wight. The distances checked, we were confident that we could reach Portsmouth without assistance.
Up over the headland from Swanage to Studland to catch the ferry across the entrance to Poole Harbour and we arrived just in time to catch the boat. The cycle path was shown as following the promenade along the seafront passing Bournemouth and Boscombe on its way to Chichester. Not long after joining the track we came upon a notice saying “during the months of July and August the track is closed to cycles between the hours of 10am and 6pm. It was 9.45. Full steam ahead for the next 15 minutes brought us past the centre of Bournemouth, but shortly afterwards we were stopped by two beach patrols who decided that the time had now passed 10. Nothing for it but to climb the hill onto the top of the cliffs and follow the road in the direction of Hengistbury Head. The sun was shining and there were great views along the coast in either direction.
Our next ferry was to be the passenger ferry across to Christchurch. We reached the end of the headland to see the ferry about to depart from the other side – but where would it land. We were informed by two holiday makers that we had passed the landing stage “a long way back” – fortunately this turned out to be less than half a mile away and we were at the landing stage almost at the same time as the ferry arrived. Sticking to the main road we made our way on through Milton towards Lymington to catch the ferry to Yarmouth on the IOW. We thought our luck was in as there was a ferry in dock as we arrived – but by the time the tickets were purchased it had already closed its doors and we were informed that we would have to catch the next boat. The service is half hourly so it wasn’t a long wait.
The roads on the IOW were not at all busy so we kept to the main road until we reached the outskirts of Newport and then turned off towards Carisbrooke – the fifth and last Priory. Once more while there are few remains of the original Priory there are a number of buildings which have incorporated the stones from it nearby. The church here had a surprise in store. On reading the history we discovered that there was a tomb in the south east corner of the church to yet another Abott of Lyre. When we arrived the organist was practising. As we were about to leave she left the church and enquired about our interest in the building. She informed us of another “very old” priory not far away by the castle. We thought we had better investigate. This very old building however turned out to be Victorian and a priory belonging to the Dominican order. They made us very welcome but it was soon obvious that there was nothing here related to Lyre.
We had nearly completed the 50 miles for the day. Our aiming point was Fishbourne to catch the ferry to Portsmouth to meet up with Malcolm. Our luck was in – the ferry was running late and was due to leave in the next few minutes. This time we had time to purchase our tickets. Once on the boat we were directed to leave our bikes against the raised loading ramp - was this a good idea??!! We met up with Malcolm at the Channel Ferry terminal, loaded the bikes onto the car and sought out somewhere to eat. The Channel ferry was due to leave at 11pm – so a leisurely evening was enjoyed by all. Which is more than can be said for the crossing – the club class seats sounded good when they were booked, but sleep was hard to come by except for some!
The mileage at the end of the day was 50.9 miles.