Holiday...Tuesday

Elizabeth Castle

We rose quite early (for me at least) and went down for breakfast. I had cereal and fruit juice, but mum had the full hit, cereal and juice and then bacon and egg and toast. Then we went back to the room to decide what to do from the leaflets we had picked up in the hotel lobby and in various places in St Helier on Monday.
Elizabeth Castle sounded interesting, and there was a deal where we could get a ‘puddle duck’ over to the castle which was situated on a rocky outcrop in the middle of the bay, have a free lunch while we were there, and then a ‘puddle duck’ back. We went and bought our tickets and walked along the sea front until we reached the departure point. The sun was beating down by this time, hot and bright, but we thought nothing of it.



A puddle Duck

The ‘puddle ducks’ are yellow and blue amphibious craft, built for land and sea, so that when the tide is in, they can ferry people across to the castle, and when the tide is out, they can drive across the muddy causeway carrying those people who are too lazy to walk. The voyage over was fun, and when we got to the castle we began to explore. Around midday, there is a mini ‘play’ where a gentleman dressed in 17th century soldier uniform gives a history of the castle and how it has been used and added to over the centuries by generations of soldiers and armies. He was very interesting and entertaining, and then at the end of it, he did some audience participation by getting all the men to march in formation to the canon, which he explained about and then fired, making a bang that could be heard probably across the sea in France! The kind of bang that even with your fingers crammed forcefully into your ears, you can still hear, and it makes your whole body vibrate as it forces its way up through the ground and into your feet.



We spent the whole day at the Castle, originally we were going to leave after the gun and go elsewhere, but we decided that there was so much to see that we’d stay, and we went all the way to the top, and all the way to the far end of the breakwater and up to the top of the hermitage where Helier (later to become a Saint) spent the last of his years before being killed by Vikings.
When we got back to St Helier we decided to return to the hotel and change before finding somewhere to eat. When we did find somewhere to sit down and order food, we waited nearly an hour for it to arrive. When it came it was lovely, but we were sitting outside and the wind was chilly. The hotel when we got back was warm and welcoming.