Sun, sand and white cliffs

Monday, 30th August, was a Bank Holiday, here in the UK… which meant that I had a long weekend to enjoy. And enjoy it I did!

Me and my housemates rented a car and we spent the long weekend travelling, seeing some fantastic sights and eating some great food along the way. We spent Saturday in and around Brighton… Sunday at the Bluewater mall in Kent and enjoyed sun and sand at Isle of Wight on Sunday. Here’s an account of my weekend travels…

Saturday at Brighton:

We drove down to Brighton, which is to the south-east of England. It’s a very lively city with a great pebble beach which has the world famous Brighton pier with arcades, games and rides. Seen here is a view of the sailboats along the beach-front.

The beach is so lively that it has people engaged in water sports, extreme sports, basketball, etc. Seen here is a beach volleyball match in action. Alas, the only girl among this lot has missed the shot in this photo! ;-)

It was a hot and sunny day (thankfully!) in Brighton. So, after a stroll along the beach, we had a round of refreshing drinks at one of the beach-front restaurants.

After spending time at the beach, we drove about 20 miles to the east of Brighton along the coast to an awesome place called Beachy Head. It’s the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain, rising over 530 feet above the sea level. There’s a lighthouse (Height: 43 metres) at the base of the cliff. You can see it in the photos above. The second photo here is just to prove that I was really there! ;-)

Sunday at Bluewater mall:

On Sunday, we decided to take it easy. So we drove to Bluewater mall in Kent. Seen here is a view of the Queen Elizabeth II bridge, which we crossed while driving to the mall. This bridge, all of 450 metres long, is Europe’s largest cable supported bridge.

Bluewater mall is Europe’s largest retail and leisure destination, with over 330 stores, 40 cafés, bars and restaurants and a 13-screen cinema. We spent the whole day window shopping. After the shops closed, we had a hearty chicken feast at Nando’s inside the mall and then watched The Chronicles of Riddick at the cinema in the mall (The movie is “okie-dokie”… kind of Matrix meets Star Wars meets xXx. Popcorn entertainment meant to be enjoyed without the use of brain!). Seen here in this photos are views from inside the mall. The photo on the right is from the Land Rover Adventure Zone in the mall.

Sunday at Bluewater mall:

We set off early morning (7:30 AM on a day off is in fact very very early) and within no time hit the M25 and then after a while, the M3 towards Southampton. It was a glorious day… exactly as forecast (for once, the weatherman got his prediction right… thankfully!). As we sped along the motorway, we passed this absolutely sexy car, the Ford GT40. I just about managed to resist myself from drooling all over our car’s window!! :-P

Once we reached Southampton, we waited for the huge ferry boat to dock at the Southampton Red Funnel Ferry Terminal. We managed to board the 10 AM ferry. The huge boat, named ‘Red Osprey’, then took us to Cowes on the Isle of Wight. Seen here are photos of the Southampton Ferry Terminal and a shot of our car on the ‘Red Osprey’.

Having reached Cowes, we decided to cover the island in a clockwise direction. The first stop was the town of Ryde. We parked the car at some disance from the seafront and walked through the wonderfully colourful town centre, situated on a slope leading down to the seafront. After getting sprayed with sea-water (in the Marine-Drive or Worli Sea-Face style) we roamed around some more taking in sights from this seaside town. Seen here is the view from the pier.

We left Ryde and rode down to Sandown. The view from the beach at Sandown is breathtaking… with a massive white cliff visible on the left, which incidentally, you can see in the first photo here. The second photo looks dark because I took it with the sun shining into the camera. We had fun at Sandown. We played 18 holes of crazy golf (where I took a zillion shots to complete the course), slid down a slide while shrieking out like a kid and had a beer and lunch at a pub named ‘The jolly Sailor’. The third photo, here, shows a group of bikers (They call themselves the ‘Boring Old Fartz’) enjoying themselves on the slide.

Having had a satisfying lunch at Sandown, we made our way to Ventnor, which is one of the most beautiful sea-side towns on the Isle of Wight. I loved the Mediterranean feel that this town exudes. We spent some time on the top of a cliff overlooking the beach, catching forty-winks. Seen here is a view from that cliff.

The last stop on the island was the amazing geologic feature called the Needles. It’s a series of three chalk pinnacles which are the vestiges of a chalk ridge that once joined the Isle of Wight to the mainland. I could not take more photos of the Needles because by the time we reached there, the chair lift that gives us a magnificient view of the Needles had closed down for the day (such is the way here… everything just shuts down after 5 PM!!). Seen in this photo is my pathetic attempt to capture the Needles in my cellphone camera using a coin-operated telescope as a shade from the sun shining into my face (and the camera).

Having spent the day beach-hopping, we then made the longish drive back to Cowes from where we took the ferry back to Southampton. This time around, the ferry boat was named ‘Red Eagle’. Seen here in the photo is our approach towards the Southampton ferry terminal. The time was 8:30 PM and the moon was just about to rise and accompany us along the way back to Hemel Hempstead… bringing an end to a day full of sunshine, beaches and sea-water sprays! :-)

And that is how I spent the long weekend!!

PS: Ohhh… I forgot to tell you about this. When we were at Brighton on saturday, we roamed around the Brighton pier enjoying the beautiful weather and the colourful atmosphere. The four of us (me and my housemates) played one game there. The ‘Dolphin Race’ (actually, about 15 people take part in this ‘race’, simultaneously). I had played the last time I had been to Brighton and I had won. So when I played this time around, I had a title to defend!
I won the ‘Dolphin Race’ this time around too! And I won this clownfish as the prize! ;-)