Cent Vingt: Stiles

I’m a sucker for an English footpath. I’m not sure where this interest came from. Perhaps it was my parents dragging us out onto them in 1970, and it just seemed so much better that walking through another cathedral and doing more brass rubbings. Certainly stiles are fun for any kid. Being a bit of a climber I remember waiting for the next one to come round the corner!

As soon as we drove off the ferry I started looking for “Public Footpath” signs, and couldn’t wait to get out on as many as we could manage!

In Arudel we managed one little walk in to the countryside, complete with two stiles. London? Not so many footpaths.....

The further we have gone along in this trip the more I was anticipating the Isle on Man and Scotland. Now, this is footpath country! We have come equipped with three separate books on walks on IOM. We’re ready!

On Snaefell, the highest point on IOM

Looking down from Snaefell

Our route along the cliffs

What is it I love about hiking in Britain? It’s a combination many things I realize: It’s being in the country, but not in wilderness: The idea that if I walk in any direction for a kilometre, I’ll probably run into a pub, or at least a farm. It’s the feeling I remember from being a boy of running into an old ruin, foundation, strange lump of ground, and wondering what it was. An old mill? An Anglo Saxon burial mound? An old gun emplacement from the war? The possibilities and mysteries are endless! I love hiking here because the trees have been sawed down for centuries, giving us wonderful views of green valleys, distant farms, flocks of sheep, new hills to climb, towers and ruins on the horizon. I love the idea that people are permitted, and have been for decades, to walk across other people’s land. Stiles mean climbing (I was a climber as a kid, still am) and they mean trespassing, which is completely accepted. I think “private property” is a much more closed concept in North America.

Corrin's Folly from a distance

Yesterday we went on a real footpath hike here on IOM. The day was sunny with a crisp wind. There were fog banks offshore, and in the high hills looming, but never sliding down to cover us! We parked in the shadow of the Peel Castle, walked south, first climbing steep hills, Peel and Corrin’s Folly (complete with burial tower build by Mister Corrin, for himself), then downhill past fields of sheep with brand new lambs (very late this year because of huge snows in March – 16 foot drifts are talked about, and there is still snow in higher shady spots); then along the cliffs, often precariously, but always with great vistas of the coast, seabirds flying below us, and gorse scratching at our pants. We took our time and had a picnic lunch at the top of a particularly tall ladder stile (a climbers delight). Then up a glen away from the coast to a pub, where we enjoyed a local ale (I would never think of drinking beer during a North America hike, but here it seems culturally appropriate). Finally down the road back toward Peel, noticing the old mill to the left, complete with (a now immobile) water wheel, an old railway line, and fish ladder! It’s all I could hope for. And it was long! We were out 4 hours and really had a good, long and challenging walk!

Halfway reward!

Today the weather is more typical: blowing, with sheets of rain rolling across the roof of our cottage sounding like waves. We’ll stay under museum roofs today (if I can ever get the boys to wake up!).

Tomorrow we will find another footpath, and see what we see!