Short flight to Guernsey

Last Monday was my first day at a new job at WCRS. It is so far really fun. The people are great and the work is really interesting and very creative. I only worked four days last week as we had booked a trip to Guernsey.

Benny had booked us a flight on a little bit too tiny plane. It was a Dash 8. I was really happy to be on the ground.

We arrived to overcast weather. Sadly none of my wishes came true for hot summer weather this weekend. After landing quite early we went to the hotel to drop our bags off. The hotel was set on top of the hill of St Peters Port. We had changed weekends because we wanted a hotel room with views and we are so glad we waited. The view was amazing. We were on the top floor of a really cute hotel called Sunnycroft. You could only access it by walking about about 50 stairs, so the location was really quiet away from traffic noise. This is the view straight from the window. I wish we could have stayed longer.

On the first day we wandered around the port. I did a bit of shopping and we visited the castle. The castle was just where the edge of the wall is on the right of the photo. We turned up about an hour before the castle shut and it was only a £1 to go in. It is a special deal if you don't have time to see all the museums. A lot of the castle was destroyed in the war as Germany occupied this island. Over the island there are a lot of underground tunnels and viewing areas that the Germans used. It is a very fascinating island. We finished the afternoon off by walking along the cliffs and just admiring this magical place.

The nice taxi driver who took us to the hotel told us that there was an event taking place at the port on our first evening. We were intrigued and wandered down. I think most of the island was there taking part in the Harbour festival. At the festival we watched little rubber ducks you have in the bath race. Little kids could decorate and sponsor their duck in the hope that it would win. It is hard to describe but basically the tide comes over the mooring area for the boats and they release the ducks into a enclosed space and what ever duck reaches the furtherest after 5 minutes wins. It was funny to watch as there were thousands of ducks all floating around very expensive sailing boats. We stayed at the event for a few hours watching all the events for the evening. The final event was human-flight competition where people in funny outfit like contraptions tried to fly the furtherest. People made some ridiculous contraptions, sadly no one glided too far. We couldn't believe that they were jumping in with no wetsuits.

Day two can be described as torrential down pour with big gusts of wind. We had to catch the bus around the island. It was a bit too big to walk everywhere and the hiring bike idea went out the window because of the weather. We caught the bus to a little chapel on the island which was built in 1914. It is 9ft long and 4.5ft wide with three tiny rooms and is covered with chips of crockery, some of which have been donated by Wedgewood as they are continually restoring it. After the chapel we went back to a pub to dry out and watch the women's final of Wimbledon.

The plan for our last day was to hire bikes and sadly we couldn't as the weather was unpredictable.  We decided on catching the loop bus that goes around the island. It was only £1. The bus was filled with tourists from a cruise ship that docked into port for the day. Loads of people in cruise wear piled onto the bus. They had to put a few extras buses on. We got out on the other side of the island where we admired the views and had a picnic lunch. We also came across honesty boxes usually outside houses. They sell fruit and vege as well as flowers. Most things are £1 - £3.50.

We had such a great time in Guernsey. It was a lovely island and the people were so friendly and kind. If we get an opportunity we would love to go back.