#MiniBreeze car, bus, soldiers and a mushroom

#MiniBreeze has had two busy days.  Yesterday he did the thing that he was determined to stay and do.  You may remember he came to choose a new car for Baboon HQ in June, well yesterday he got to pick it up with us.

The car was waiting in the showroom and #MiniBreeze got straight in while we did the registration and business details.  As soon as we got it outside he decided to give it a thorough inspection.

The bonnet passed his inspection,

the wing mirrors were fun to climb on,

the back met with his approval and

he said it was good to drive.

Today he tried another form of transport.  We decided to take one of our longest walks.  We parked the car in the village of Carisbrooke, famous for its castle and got the bus to the west of the island, so that we could walk back.

We got on the bus in Carisbrooke,

carried on to Shalfleet and

got to the coastal town of Yarmouth.  Here there was great excitement, we have had UK special forces soldiers on the island for over a week, on exercises, we saw a US airforce Osprey getting some of them over here, it flew around the island for a few days.  Today they were leaving the island.

#MiniBreeze was fascinated by their amphibious craft that they were loading vehicles onto.  Luckily the bus stopped here for a while and he could watch them.  Eventually we moved on to the Needles Pleasure Park at the far end of the island.  We were so early the park was not open yet but it was where our walk started.

We climbed Needles Down and #MiniBreeze could see across to Headon Warren, the down on the other side of the island.  The island is very narrow here so you can see right across.  Headon Warren is covered with heather.

Looking back he could see towards Alum Bay where we started.  This is an interesting place because you can see the Needles rocks from there and there is coloured sand on the cliffs.

We walked from there to Freshwater, via Tennyson Down that #MiniBreeze has visited a lot, with the memorial to Alfred Lord Tennyson, a Victorian poet laureate, who lived in Freshwater.  We walked right through the golf course at Freshwater which is a links course, and reached Compton Down.

We walked right along there and onto Brook Down, where you can see the steep chalk path that we walked down and onto more and more climbing.

On Mottistone Down #MiniBreeze had quite a surprise:

that is a very big mushroom!

We walked on with more climbing and a little bit of descent, we crossed some woods and finally came out near Carisbrooke.

Now we could see views on either side.

We carried on towards Carisbrooke and were able to see the Bowcombe Valley, which is very beautiful.

Finally we descended into Carisbrooke and found the car again.  #MiniBreeze was happy to see it.

This was a 14 mile walk so we were quite tired.  We went home for tea and cake to revive us.