22-Oct-2023
It's a variable little Island when it comes to the weather... We've had all sorts during our current stay. Today was warm for October, with just the lightest of winds, and a quite extraordinary light.
We started off walking from Castletown to Derbyhaven and back:
Castletown harbour
Coffee at the golf club (with apple-and-custard cake and a really great view...)
Heading back into Castletown
It was lunchtime by now, and we decided that the quality and clarity of the light we were enjoying today should not be wasted. So we headed up to the Victory Cafe. Unfortunately, every other Manx person plus several thousand from Across seemed to have had the same idea, and the staff were totally overrun. But lunch eventually arrived, and was worth the wait:
Nigel's gargantuan ploughman's...
And for the same old reason -- because you never know when you're going to see weather like this again -- we decided to head off up Snaefell.
It's just 200 metres of reasonably easy ascent from The Bungalow. And the views in the low afternoon light were just stunning:
The Summit Cafe coming into view
The valley we walked up when we visited the Snaefell Mines the other day
Views all ways
The Snaefell Mountain Railway has been running for over 120 years. There's a more detailed history starting here
We walked down today, but this was the conveyance we took from The Bungalow back down to Laxey after our Snaefell Mines trip
You don't get many days like today, especially in October. So we're feeling very, very chuffed.