Let’s just get the cost out of the way a ‘Sun £9.50 holiday’ don’t cost £9.50,
unless you’re so tight you take your own bed linen and prefer to stay in a
caravan without electricity instead of using the holiday park’s
facilities. This year’s four night trip cost around £45 each which
included upgrading to a cottage, electricity, linen, park passes, and ferry
(priority loading with Red Funnel) for four people. Where in the UK can you
stay in a hotel for 3 nights for a total price of £45 apart from a few bail
hostels or DSS hotels?
We chose to stay at the Rookery Country Park as it
is situated in the centre an excellent location for exploring the island and a
car journey from the Country Park to the north, south, west and east worked out
to be around 40 minutes. Our upgrade to a cottage was a spacious bungalow with
the usual mod-cons you might find in a mobile home along with a washing machine
and my personal favourite a dishwasher. It just needed Sky TV for the
accommodation to be perfect. As it was
the middle of May and low season (or very low season), the park’s chip shop
was shut and there wasn't many guests staying here, they were either fellow ‘£9.50ers’, die
hard fisherman who sat around the fishing lake in the rain or wedding guests. The entertainment room was closed for two nights (due to the wedding)so the entertainers did their
acts in the bar/reception., but as we were only using the park as a base we were
too tired on the night to worry about the lack of space.
Starting in the North we visited Osborne House, Queen
Victoria’s home (£13.40 entrance fee). I was dragged there by my Mom but it was
actually very interesting and it took a couple of hours to walk around the
house and grounds where Queen Vic holidayed and died. It was a long walk to the
Swiss Cottage where her children played and her private beach, gold stars for
the person who came up with the idea of a shuttle bus we only walked from the
Swiss Cottage to the beach and that was hard work so we might not have bothered if there was no
transport between the house, cottage and beach.
Osborne House
Queen Victoria's private beach
To the (South) East, there is Shaklin Beach very
quiet (again very low season) but The Waterfront Inn’s lunchtime menu food was
very tasty and well-priced (jacket potato and prawns with a hot drink £8). It
had a beautiful sea view and a helpful waiter who kept breaking out into song,
maybe hoping someone in the restaurant was friends with Simon Cowell. A bit further up the coast from Shaklin was Sandown
which looked like a nice place in the summer, but on a raining Sunday in May it
didn’t look so good and we only walked three quarters long the pier as the wind
and rain was to strong for us to reach the end, a cup of tea in the pier cafe
was more inviting.
Going west was my favourite part of this weekend the
Jimi Hendrick status outside the Dimbola Lodge Museum in Freshwater. The statue was to commemorate Jimi’s appearance at the Isle of Wight Festival in 1970,the Dimbola Lodge was the home of Victorian photographer Julia Margaret Cameron
and the lodge shows her work and exhibits other photographers work.
We weren’t keen on walking around a museum (holiday fatigue kicking in)
so it made our day that ‘Jimi’ was in front of the museum. Perfectly placed next
to the car park but away from the entrance, I could take my photos and leave
without feeling guilty about not buying an admission ticket.
Jimi Hendrick status
With the corners kind of covered we went
into the Centre to Newport. I think we took a wrong turning in Newport, as the
Centre wasn’t any different to any other English City Centre, same shops, same
coffee shops but it wasn’t a wasted journey as The George Pub’s pasta bolognese
and garlic bread was gorgeous, filing and probably my favourite meal of the
weekend. This pub offered daily specials for only £7 - £9 and this particular
portion was massive.
My holiday tip for other Isle of Wight
virgins is pick up a copy of Island Visitor magazine, on the cover is states ‘
The essential guide to the Isle of Wight’ and it is! We only visited a few
places and there is so much more to see that a few return visits have been
added to my travel bucket list.
Now it’s time to stop travelling for a few months
and start saving for my next trip – its back to the TV, I hope my sky box as
recorded some good stuff over the last few months.
Useful websites/addresses
Rookley
Country Park - http://www.rookleycountrypark.co.uk/Osborne House – www.english-heritage.org.uk
Dimbola lodge museum - http://www.dimbola.co.uk/
Waterfront Inn, 19 Esplanade, Shanklin, P037 6BN
The George Pub, 92 St James' St, Town Centre, Newport (IOW) PO30 1LB
