Guernsey.
A weekend trip with a couple of my friends in the channel islands of Guernsey and Herm. June 2007.
<Alex about to board the plane at Gatwick> <Boats in St. Peter Port, Guernsey>
<St. Peter Port> <Boats approaching Guernsey St. Peter Port Harbour>
<Nets piled by the quayside> <Castle Cornet at low tide>
<Angular view of Castle Cornet, St. Peter Port>
<Lighthouse, St. Peter Port, Guernsey> <Ships in the harbour>

Alex, Hannah and I lived together at University on the south coast of England, where a lot of channel islanders choose to study, due to its close proximity; Hannah from the island of Guernsey included. For years we've been meaning to go and visit her, on this somewhat un-usual part of the British Isles, which I find few people that I know, ever seem to visit. Finally almost 5 years after we all left, we managed to sort out a weekend to go and visit.

Alex and I, both Londoners, took Friday off work and headed down to Gatwick airport for the short flight across to Guernsey. Even arriving at Gatwick, it felt a very relaxed affair, and there was no queuing or bustling, that one so often encounters, with air travel now. After a short but relatively bumpy flight we arrived at Guernsey airport, and just looking out of the window on landing, the water looked a magnificent blue, the countryside a rich green and I was getting very excited. I'd flown over the islands a few months before on my way to Morocco and Marathon Des Sables, and it looked wonderful then as well, so I was chuffed to finally be here.

The airport terminal building was only a few years old, and was clean and impressive, and it felt like arriving in a nice country town rather than air travel and the experience was very stress free. We had to get to the main town St. Peter Port, where Hannah was just finishing her working week.

 <Lighthouse, St. Peter Port>
<Panormaic of St. Peter Port>
<Boats and Castle Cornet> <More boats>
<Hannah and Alex waiting for the bus to go out> Sunset
We met up with Hannah over her lunch hour, and she showed us some places to go explore until the end of the day. Even after just a few hours in town, I could tell that this was a great place to be. People were so friendly and the streets clean and views fantastic. It felt like this was the way that England ought to be; half the number of people and like a big village surrounded by green, how I wish London and England in general was more like this.

We had drinks overlooking St Peter Port, and then travelled to the other side of the island for fish and chips on the beach and watched the sun going down, it was really quite something, and felt like being in a far off Mediterranean island, but with all the benefits of the quiet countryside.

The next day Hannah took us to the neighbouring island of Herm a 20 minute ferry ride and a £9 return fare away. The island has no cars, just a few quad bikes and some tractors, and in half an hour we had leisurely walked halfway round the island, to shell beach. The beach reminded me of Cuba's Varadero strip, of white shell sand, it too is a superb beach. Hannah and her mate Liam pointed out the French coast 15 odd miles to the south, and a dominant white industrial building, which is apparently a nuclear power station. We headed back to the port, amidst my grumbles that we didn't have time to look for Puffins on the rocky beach the far side of the island, I sulked briefly.
<Herm island, looking back towards St. Peter Port>
<Herm Island harbour> <Shell Beach, Herm>
<Shell Beach, Herm, with France in the background> <Me, Hannah and Alex, taken by Liam>
<Shells on the beach, Herm>
<Hannah running into the water, taken using very saturated Fuji Velvia film>
<Alex>
<Hannah catching a frisbee>
<Liam and Hannah playing Frisbee>
Our final day in Guernsey started for me at 6:30am when I awoke to fuel up for a cheeky half marathon, which I'd found out about on arrival on Friday. I'd left Alex, Liam and Hannah in the local nightclub, and headed home around 1am to get some rest. I'd had just a couple of beers in the whole night, it's not clever to drink and race. Liam kindly lent me a shirt and trainers (I hadn't planned to race whilst on our trip) and I got a cab to a spot ont he far side of the island, there was barely another person around, but fortunately 45mins later 300 other runners pitched up and we started the race around approx a quarter of the island, back to outskirts of St. Peter Port. I really enjoyed being out running, and it was a real bonus that the race coincided this weekend. Alex and Hannah were good enough to drag themselves up and come to see me finish. It was a warm day though nothing in comparison to the harsh Sahara, and I managed a personal best of 1hour 33minutes, which was thrilling (Click to see photo of us at the finish). We'd earned a fry up brekkie in St Peter Port.

We spent the rest of the day on the beach, and driving to other parts of the island which we hadn't seen. I got quite excited by some of the crumbling wartime Nazi bunkers which are all around the island (photo 1) (photo 2). After afternoon tea with Hannah's parents we sadly had to leave, and return to the airport. Unfortunately our aircraft had a technical fault and we were delayed by a few hours, and told that we'd be returning to Stansted instead of Gatwick. Normally this would send one's blood pressure hurtling through the roof, we just smiled and said ok, and Hannah went to get us fish and chips. We sat out in the sun opposite the terminal, grinning and reading the Sunday papers. Our stand in plane arrived, and we got back to London Stansted around 21:30, it was a rude awakening. Before long we'd taken a train back to central London, and were in it's filthy sub-terrainian system, with all the negatives of big city life has to present. We'd left the island paradise and were now back in our muddled mixed up society that is modern London. Such a shame, and I can't wait to visit this paradise island again soon.


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Authors: Photographs and page created by: James Bartosik.
Date of event: 11th - 13th June 2008.
Page History: First created: July 13th 2008. Last Revision: n/a. Revision version: 1.0.
Camera and Lenses: Canon 30v, EF 24-70L USM f2.8, EF 15mm f.28 Fisheye, Canon Powershot G9. Film: Fuji Provia 100, Fuji Velvia 50.
Locations: Guernsey, Herm, the channel islands.
Copyright: © Copyright material, all rights reserved