Jersey 2021 with U3A – second day
On day one we had a full Island tour and our driver was the knowledgeable Sean, originally from Yorkshire – but we did not hold that against him. There are twelve parishes of Jersey (Les pâraisses dé Jèrri), all have access to the sea and share a name with their ancient parish churches. We must have driven through nearly all of them.
Our first stop was Gorey Harbour which is overlooked by the imposing Mont Orgueil castle. After this we passed Gibraltar Rock (well, Jersey’s version) on route to St Catherine’s Breakwater where had a coffee and doughnut (in my case) in the café and visited the amazing sand sculpture castle created by Jersey’s Sand Wizard.
After this Sean took us inland and we drove past many expensive houses, Jersey has lots of wealthy residents – Sean has a good appreciation of the house prices, some worth over £30 million.
Sean told us how the Connétable (Constable in English) of each parish use a measuring stick to make biannual ‘Visite du Branchage’ (inspection of roads) to ensure that the vegetation does not encroach onto the road – height and width. The Constable have powers to fine offenders and Sean told us that they carry a saw and make a cross on the offending trunk, which must be cut back within weeks. We saw one house where all trees bordering it had been cut down under this regime. We later learned that Branchage is also Jersey slang for men getting a haircut.
We drove through St John parish and stopped to view the resting place of the late Billy Butlin. It is a marble gravestone in the shape of a double bed and is eye catching, being massive and having his story engraved on it. By contrast, Alan Whicker’s, another late Jersey resident, gravestone in the parish of Trinity is very small.
Then we drove for our lunch to the lovely, Greve de Lecq beach and ate at the café overlooking the beach. It is a great favourite with visitors and locals alike, straddling the parishes of St. Mary and St. Ouen.
Still in St. Ouen, we drove to the Jersey Pearl showroom found at the northern end of the Five Mile Road coastal road on the west coast of the island – which, perversely, Sean told us, is only three miles long. Obviously I was not very interested in Pearls and after a brief look I went to the nearby beach and walked out towards the water line. Others went to the nearby Channel Island Military Museum, housed in a German bunker which once formed part of Hitler’s Atlantic Wall defenses
From there we drove to La Corbière, the south-western point of Jersey in the parish of St. Brelade, it is a stunning location – remote and very beautiful. A sculpture, sculpted by Derek Tristram, of two clasped hands is next to the path down to the lighthouse. It was erected to commemorate the rescue of 307 passengers from a catamaran called Saint-Malo which ran aground on rocks off this point in 1995.
Our final stop of a very full day was St Aubin which is on the western side of the beautiful St Aubin’s Bay still in the parish of St Brelade. We then made our way back to the Merton, in the parish of St Saviour, on the eastern outskirts of St Helier, Jersey’s capital.
