Saturday
This was a very lazy day!
Although I walked up to the co-op first thing, we spent most of the day on the esplanade (posh word!).
We had doughnuts for lunch, and dodged a couple of showers, but it was a pleasant day.
We sat in the pub underneath our room for a bit, and then went upstairs to eat the salad and trifles I'd bought earlier.
Sunday
We got the bus soon after breakfast from the stop almost opposite our digs.
It was a 90 minute scenic journey along the south of the island to the Needles.
Our day ticket (we couldn't use our bus passes on the scenic, seasonal routes) also allowed us to use the bus to get to the Needles Old Battery where there was a huge mountain for Sacha to descend! Still, we got there and had a mooch around the National Trust place and lunched on tea & cake from the tea room. We slowly, oh so slowly, went back up the path to the bus stop and went back to the 'Landmark Attraction'.
The main part of this is where the chair lift goes down to Alum Bay is, but frankly, it's dreadful! It's a few tacky shops, fairground rides and fast food. Our guess was that most of the visitors never leave the compound and never see the Needles, the headland, or the bay. We aren't the target demographic obviously!
Anyway - moving on - we got on the first return bus back to Shanklin for another 90 minute odyssey. Unusually for me, I felt quite unsteady when I got off the bus - maybe 90 minutes being whirled around country lanes is just a bit much!
We had a nice tea in the pub under our room - Sacha had a huge pizza and I tucked into some chicken and chips.
We missed watching the Tour de France again, so we'll catch up on YouTube later.