Caldey Island

 Our tour guide had mentioned Caldey Island on the tour, so we decided to investigate further. We’d spotted the kiosk to get tickets to the ferry earlier, so after breakfast and yoga (Nicola, not me) we walked down into town along the coast path and strode smartly up to the kiosk, and demanded in clear ringing tones “two tickets to Caldey Island, my good man!” Or something like that. He directed us through the archway and down onto the beach where our transport would be waiting. He wasn’t wrong.

The journey over was short and uneventful, but getting onto the beach was a palaver. At low tide, the jetty doesn’t reach far enough out to sea (the tidal drop here is around 8 metres), and they have this Heath-Robinson contraption of a caged platform and tractor on caterpillar tracks to get onto the beach without getting your feet wet. There was a bit of a queue to load and unload people from waiting boats, so it took us about a further 20 minutes to get ashore.

Once there, we followed the crowd to behold a Tyrolean wonder. There is an order of monks on the island, and they live and work in this dwelling: 

We stopped at the tea shop, because it was lunchtime by this stage, then set off to explore the island. The forested lowlands are home to one of the UK’s few red squirrel populations, but we failed to spot any. We carried on up to the lighthouse, and then around the other coast of the island which is cliff faces populated by seabirds. We were on the lookout for puffins, but again they were conspicuous by their absence. We did see some North Atlantic grey seals, basking on the rocks, and also wrens, choughs, house martins, black swans, and moorhens.

We also looked into the old church, where the monks chant in the Gregorian style. We’d missed the services, however, so we watched the house martins zipping in and out, and bumblebees nesting (hiving?) in gaps in the stonework.

On our way back we went into the village shop to acquire so monk-made chocolate bars, then got onto the ferry back to town. The tide had risen by that point so we had no need of the contraption and could board from the pier. Back in town we didn’t fancy the additional 40 minute walk back to Waterwynch, so looked around for a café for a cup of tea and to arrange a taxi. By this time it was latish afternoon, and all the cafés were shut, but we found a pub instead, called the taxi firm, were told it would be 45 minutes (I think they only have one car) and drank tea and did the crossword until it arrived.

In the evening we had a catered feast where two chefs brought all their ingredients to our kitchen and prepared a Spanish fiesta, involving canapes, gazpacho, seafood paella, and peach cheesecake.