Isle of Wight, Home of the Stinging Nettle

Last weekend, my friends Margot, Kim, Stefanie and I took a little jaunt to the seaside town of Lymington in Southern England and spent a day hiking on the Isle of Wight (a half-hour ferry ride from Lymington Pier). Lymington is about an hour and a half train ride from London's Waterloo Station, making it a very easy weekend escape.

In Lymington, we stayed at the Angel Inn, a homey little tavern with a lively pub downstairs. Saturday morning, after breakfast at the Inn and a visit to Tesco where we picked up some granola bars, dried fruit and water, we boarded the ferry for the town of Yarmouth on the Isle of Wight. It's a really charming place...lots of coastal walks along the cliffs, quaint towns and pretty scenery. We hiked about 6 miles along the coast, on a trail through the brush that was at times precarious, to say the least (the path would occassionally disappear completely as we were in foliage over our heads and would shout to ensure we were all still together....sort of gave me the creeps like in an episode of "Lost") We occassionally came upon plateaus covered in heather, which was really beautiful, not to mention that these were higher spots where we also got magnificent views of the sea and scattered white sailboats.

We hiked from Yarmouth out to "The Needles" -- a collection of three jagged white rocks that reach out into the sea. About halfway along the hike, we stopped at a quaint seaside restaurant for lunch. That's the thing I love about England...you can hike in wilderness and not see another soul, yet still have places along the way to stop, eat a proper meal, and use a bathroom. That's my kind of hiking.

We also walked through a stretch of flat countryside where there were gorgeous golden fields of hay...one of my favourite things about the country here. It was on this particular stretch that I also discovered for my first (and hopefully last) time, stinging nettles. OUCH! Are they jellyfish, you ask? No. Stinging nettles look like MINT. But they are NOT mint. I thought I smelled mint (think they are from a similar family), looked down and yelled, "HEY GUYS -- LOOK! MINT!" While reaching down for a handful. OH. MY. GOD. Instant fire and pain. I snapped my hand back yelling something like, "OW OW OW OW !!! OWWW!!! OOOOOWWWWW!" I had no idea what had hit me. No one really seemed to care, Margot nonchalantly said, "Oh, stinging nettles." And I'm like, "What the hell is that? Do I die from it? Is it poisonous??? OWWWW!!!!!" Margot explained it would eventually subside, which it did, about 10 minutes later after much more griping (your hands get red with white bumps when you touch it). That was totally not fun. But now I know. I'm just happy the pain came quickly as a warning before I popped some into my mouth, which I was definitely planning to do. Somehow I do not think I'd fare well in wilderness survival. Poor Stef was wearing shorts so she caught a bit of the nettles too in the brush. But she didn't yell or complain. She clearly is more grown up than me and has a higher tolerance for pain.

Toward the end of the hike, we ended up at the famous "coloured sands," a stretch of cliffside that exposes many different shades of sand (if you take the painted dessert in America and put it vertical on a cliffside, this is what you get). The coloured sands overlook the sparkly green Alum Bay (there's also a glass factory nearby). From the rocky beach at the base of the coloured sands, we took a chairlift to the top of the cliff. I saw the chairlift and thought "Cool! Let's take the chairlift!" Then, about a quarter of the way up I began to have an anxiety attack and was pretty much clutching onto Margot and waiting for it to be over. I suddenly remembered one of the many reasons I hate sking -- the chairlifts. Though at least if you fall off a chairlift skiing, the snow below seems like a consolation. Jagged rocky cliffs do not. I was releived to hop off.

After the chairlift, we walked out to an old Battery directly overlooking the Needles. They were about to close, so we took a quick run through (I actually preferred the view of the Needles from the other side of the bay though versus immediately overhead of them.) By this point in the day, we were too tired to walk back, so we waited for a bus to take us back to Yarmouth.

When we got back into town, we caught the tail end of a local parade and then jumped on the ferry back to Lymington. It had been a really splendid day among the green foliage and sparkly water, and we were tired.

Saturday night we had a lovely dinner at Stanwell House, an Inn across the street from where we were staying. They have a comfy, pretty conservatory where we ate. After dinner, we walked down the street to a small bar and cafe called "Graze" where we had a drink. The cocktails there were impeccable. I had ordered an apple martini, then caught a glance of a girl sitting behind me with a pina colada bigger than my head (how totally retro and cool!!!)....so I quickly changed my order. And boy was it good. Splendid little place with a good vibe.

Sunday it was raining. So after our breakfast at the Inn, we took a brief stroll down the high street, then went back to the Stanwell House where the kind staff parked us in a large comfy corner with sofas and chairs and we relaxed there for a couple hours in the sunlight of the conservatory reading the paper, eating scones and english tea cakes and drinking tea. It was soooo nice and relaxing. Perfect lazy Sunday.

Around 3pm, we caught a train back to London (still raining), had dinner at Wagamama together (great Asian noodle chain in London, and my favorite Sunday evening spot) and then went our seperate ways. Good friends. Good weekend. Except those evil stinging nettles.