Holiday in Jersey, Channel Islands

We arrived back yesterday from our holiday in Jersey, Channel Islands. The weather was not the typical for July, but this was a bit of a blessing for doing some of the tourist attractions without the sweat, like Mont Orgueil Castle.

We travelled to Jersey by ferry, from Poole. A super-fast ferry got us there in just 4 hours! The boys loved to watch the huge plumes of water being jetted out the back as we whisked along at 45mph.

We stayed in the Bakehouse Cottage in St. Clement (along A5 road just past B49). It was a short walk through a horse pasture to the beach. Tosha and Tolii fed the horses carrots on many an occasion.

And wow! what a beach at St. Clement’s. When the tide goes out…it goes way out! It leaves lots of beautiful rocks exposed and there’s lots of little pools of water and tons of tiny sea creatures to examine.

Tosha just loved walking along the sandy bits between the rocks and playing in the little pools of water. Meanwhile, Granny sunned herself against the beach’s angled rock retaining wall. Tolii was fast asleep under the wind breaker.

We travelled to the world famous Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust (zoo). Katya was in sheer bliss to visit here after having read almost all of Durrell’s books as a child back in Russia. Katya picked up a lot of them at the gift shop so that daddy could now enjoy them himself (and he is!). Tosha couldn’t get enough of the colourful frogs and reptiles; and, pumping water using the old pump at the back of the manor home. Tolii enjoyed watching the gorillas. Daddy enjoyed the bats (aside: you can walk amongst bats at Singapore’s zoo, but alas not in Jersey’s).

We also visited Tolii and Tosha’s great-great aunt, Eileen Guenier. She and granny Angela had lots of gossiping to catch up on! (By the way, Tolii took this picture!)

Later in the week, we visited the new tourist attraction, aMaizin Maze. Its main claim to fame is a huge maze made out of corn growing in a field. There’s lots more besides, though. There was a bumpy tractor ride, a spray park, a giant hill to slide down and mini-golf, among other things.

And, boy did Daddy’s new GPS save the day (week?). It quickly figured out routes to get around traffic snarl ups (which only occurred when the sun came out, it seems) and wind our way to the fabulous rocky beach bays in the north. Tolii insisted upon changing the car icon every day.