Jersey - July 2009

I would like to thank Jenny a billion and one times as she typed out all of our notes. All the smart stuff in the blog is from Jenny, all the random stupid stuff is obviously from me.


Day One: Bournemouth - Southampton - Jersey

Today started off bright and early. We were both up and out of bed around 5am. Jenny's parents were kind enough to drive us to Southhampton airport where we flew away to Jersey. Jersey is one of the Channel Islands which is only 14 miles from France but is principally an English speaking country. We walked out of the departure lounge and as soon as I saw the plane, I had a quick moment of panic. It was tiny!! It consisted of 21 rows, so could hold around 74 passengers. The flight was only around 30 minutes, and as we were hand luggage only we got through the airport quickly and jumped into a taxi to take us to the other side of the island where we were staying. We checked into our little hotel in opposite Gorey Pier. Our room was pretty basic but apart from the interesting 60s style green of the bathroom, and the 80s style linen and curtains it did the job and we over looked the spectacular Mount Orguiel Castle and the harbour was yard from or hotel.

We then stopped to take some pictures of Gorey Harbour at low tide before jumping on the number 1 bus (I think it was the 1b bus that day Jenny :P)! Our helpful taxi driver had informed us that we were staying opposite a bus terminal which ran to the capital of the island St Heiler so we used that to get to the centre after a quick rest. Upon arrival we began the epic search for food. We ended up at a little restaurant called Deux Neuf which from the outside looked very nice, but apparently it only looked so satisfying because we were starving because the food and the service was far from nice. We were met with ver pink beef, unappetising chicken and a far from reasonable bill. So if you go to Jersey please don’t go there. We had to go buy chocolate to get rid of the taste and magazines with free books to ease the pain (in our minds that made sense).

We then headed over to the marina to visit the occupation tapestry, during the 2nd world war when Jersey was left unprotected (all men of a certain age were drafted into the army so the island was left in that sense unarmed etc) and was taken over by Germany and on the 50th anniversary (1988) of this event each parish in Jersey set about to make a tapestry marking their memories of the harrowing occupation. The tapestry is breathtaking and even when looking at it up close you can barely imagine the work and patience that was put into it when making it. One of the stories that it tells is the memory of a farmer’s wife; she was informed that the German’s were coming to pick up all her piglets to be used to feed their men, but she too needed to feed her family so she took one of the piglets and put it in bed with her mother in law to hide it from the German’s (Shown by a picture of a pig in bed). The way in which a series of tapestries is able to show all emotions, and all events in this way is just astounding, if you ever go to Jersey make sure you go and see it.
(Note from Elise: The tapestry was truely amazing. Never seen anything like it.)

Next we ventured over to Cobiere on the blue explorer bus (A tourist route bus) where we decided to eat ice cream despite the rain and wind. The guy at the kiosk warned us to stay near the shelter because the seagulls were very skilled at stealing ice creams, but us being the clever people that we are thought we’d be able to deal with a couple of birds. We were wrong because a seagull swopped down and stole mine when it was centimetres from my mouth; it got so close to us that the wing hit Lise’s face. It was actually hilarious and I laughed so hard I almost fell over, the guy gave me a new ice cream and this time we followed his advice and ate under the shelter. We then played in a bunker, found a bench on a cliff overlooking the pretty lighthouse, and took many a pretty photo, posing pretending to fly and being silly as per usual :P.
(Note from Elise: I have never laughed as hard as I did when Jenny's ice cream was stolen by the seagull. It was a good ten minutes before I calmed down! Also, the view was breathtakingly beautiful. I could have stayed at Cobiere for hours & hours & hours but as it was starting to get late and cool we decided to head off. I also came to the conclusion this day that I have no brain as it was cool/windy enough for me to wear jeans & a jumper but I was walking around the rocks bare footed!)

We then headed back to St Heiler and went on the search for DECENT food ending up at the well known Bella Italia chain for some well deserved yummy food. I had the yummiest cheesecake there. We then headed back to Gorey and took some more pretty photos of the harbour, this time at high tide. Back in the hotel room we munched on bits and pieces.


Day Two

First port of call today was breakfast which was unfortnately a lot earlier than we would have liked as the hotel finished serving at 9:30. Which is odd given that people like to lie in whilst on holiday and all? The flowers on the breakfast table were very pretty, as I pointed out to Jenny EVERY morning at breakfast Lol.
Breakfast was an amusing time of day, as we sat next to this family consisting of Mum, Dad & heir son who was probably about our age. His parents were very proper with their tea and the son had his ear pierced 4 times and tattoos all up his arms. He looked like he was in pain being there!
We then once again hopped on a bus (We had day passes) and went to buy Jersey passes which gave us access to a number of attractions on the island.

We then caught the nanananana aqua bus out to Elizabeth Castle, which is built on a rocky islet in St Aubin’s Bay and during high tide it is surrounded by water. Work on the castle started in 1590, and it has been modified many times over the years, lastly by the German’s during the occupation. Famous residences at the castle include King Charles II and Sir Walter Raleigh. The view from the castle over the coastline of Jersey was stunning and made the climb to the very top turret worth every ounce of energy it took from us. We then walked through the ocean, well on a path which appears as the tide recedes, to return to the mainland because the aquabus was supposedly broken (it started working again halfway through our walk across the ocean). Just before we started the walk I took a picture for a lady and her grandchildren. The lady was so very grateful and inquisitive. She was asking me all about where I live, what I do for work etc. The quote “You’re not from Jersey are you?” won’t be forgotten in a while.

It was a fair distance back to the marina, and we were ready for lunch by the time we got there. We eat at a cool restaurant which was built in the shape of a ship, and the food was pretty good. We then got on another bus which took us to the Jersey War Tunnels, an underground system known also as Hohlgangsanlage 8' which was built through slave labour during the German occupation of the 2nd World War. The extensiveness of these tunnels is scary, the amount of back breaking work under such appalling conditions required to make them habitable would have been huge. Some people think I am crazy, but places like that really get to me. I don't think of myself as an overly spiritual person but in places like that I can *sense* things. There was one particular room I walked into and just became really cold and my breathing became really fast. As soon as I left that room, I was fine again, it was surreal.

Next we jumped on a bus once again (it felt like we spent our lives on these buses but they really did make our lives less complicated) to travel to the Jersey Living Legend Attraction. The bus driver on this trip was hilarious, what with the ferocious beasts (rabbits) and beautiful cows (showing us their ‘udder side’, so we were a little sad to disembark. Unfortunately when we got to this attraction it had more or less closed for the day but we were able to buy gifts and grab food before jumping on a bus home to Gorey via St Heiler where we ate junk and relaxed in our hotel room.

Later we explored the Gorey area taking random photos, and meeting scary 40 year old men who wanted us to go see a Bon Jovi Tribute act with them, we declined and made a hasty exit. Later we went to eat at our hotel restaurant eating some yummy chips and garlic bread ha ha, the 40yr old man also found us here. Later I got toothpaste in my hair which resulted in me washing it three times in 2 hours (twice in the sink!)Hilarious according to Jenny. Jenny had by this stage had too much sugar or something, as when I came out of the bathroom from washing my head in the sink the first time, she was hidden in a cupboard.. Hmm...


Day Three

On day three we were rudely awaken by odd noises before heading down for breakfast where for the 2nd day in a row we were greeted by Abba music, which is a bit too chirpy so early in the morning. (Totally agree!!)

The first adventure of the day was the trek up to Mont Orgueil Castle (Gorey) Castle which was located directly behind our hotel. Again we were rewarded by stunning views but it took a lot of effort to reach the summit. This castle was originally built around 600 years ago to protect against French invasion, and is now closely linked with the Royal family. It consists of a network of rooms, and was completely different to Elizabeth Castle, you could tell they were built during different eras. We then walked back down and went to a tea rooms for a break, though we realised we didn’t have time to be served and make the next bus so we walked out and visited the shop instead.

Next stop was La Hogue Bie, which is a Neolithic passage grave covered by a grass mound which predates the Egyptian pyramids by around 2000 years. A medieval chapel is positioned on the top of the mound, built by the monks in an attempt to ‘Christianise’ the location which is amusing. The ‘underground’ passage into the crypt was very small, so watching some very tall people trying to get into it made me laugh. The crypt itself was cold and dark but it was also very cool. Jenny has decided to shortlist La Hogue Bie as possible locations for her wedding. Not that she's engaged or anything lol I thinks it’s a preferable location to the Orgueil Castle because it doesn’t involve walking up a mountain.

The 3rd stop was the Durrell Conservation Trust ‘Zoo’ which is world famous due to its successful work with endangered species à They have successfully pulled a number of species back from the brink. At the zoo we saw lemurs, gorillas, orangutans, otters (Or as Lise called them ‘odders’((OMG Jenny, stop being mean!)), flamingos, meerkats (including teeny tiny baby ones), ducks, many a bird, bears, and some monkeys which enjoyed showing us the joys of nature ;). We also saw some random performers dancing with umbrellas whilst pretending to be Pomeranians, and Dodos & It was a very odd expericnce to watch. We ate lunch at the zoo and somehow managed to leave the zoo without buying anything which is a miracle for us, especially given the cuteness of the giant orang-utan teddies. My cool cousin also rang while we were at the zoo which was fantastic. I miss my family muchly!

We then returned to our hotel and watched boring television (The highlight of the television most nights was Jersey Radio lol... It was pretty tragic) for a little bit before heading into St Heiler for tea. We ended up once again at Bella Italia (Yum!). I am now addicted to that place. Then after walking round in a circle, we ended up at the marina in time for sunset, so were treated to some stunning scenery. It was beautiful, and the whole sky went orange, the tide was high and waves were crashing against the marina (We got splashed). We took many a photo. Many, Many a photo.

We then headed back to Liberation Station, the main bus terminal named because the area near the station was where all the islanders gathered on the day they were liberated and freed from occupation :). The station up until now had appeared very calm and clean, but at this time of night it proved other wise and was littered with drunk 14 year olds (Even little islands don’t seem able to escape this teenage culture which is sad!) but we survived the wait for our bus by singing along to green day etc. "I walk a lonely road, The only one that I have ever known, Don't know where it goes, But it's home to me and I walk alone" We rocked.

We finally got back to our hotel room after a very very very long but thoroughly enjoyable day. Jenny managed to injure her toe and I somehow broke the toilet seat (it was dodgy!) As we have been told drama appears to follow us, but hey we still manage to have fun!


"Elise, Tell me when you are asleep"


Day Four: Jersey - Southampton - Bournemouth

Once again Abba was played during breakfast….lol. We then checked out and headed over to Jersey Pearl via St Heiler with our cases. At Jersey Pearl we picked our own oyster, Jenny's contained a peacock pearl and mine a gold pearl; we were both very lucky to get coloured pearls as apparently people usuall only choose white.. We then had some lunch before taking the bus down to Greve De Lecq a beach on the north coast of the island, from a distance it was very pretty but it could have been cleaner and the number of seagulls praying on small children’s ice creams ruined it a little. Still the rock outlets and the chance to relax after a long couple of days was lovely. I totally fell in love with a cute kid called Leo. He was freakin' adorable. About 4yrs old, curly blonde hair, rosy red (sunburnt?) cheeks and a cheeky attitude to go with it. At one stage he was running around with a fishing net on his head, and his mother followed him to get it off him and he'd keep running the other way. In the end she won and got the net off him, but when she wasn't looking, little Leo ran the other way and got another net and shoved it on his head. Mum gave up. Leo 1, Mum 0.
We took our suitcases for a paddle in the sea then after a few hours headed back to St Heiler and went to the boat café for a drink. We then sat around on the marina finding amusement in the argument between two young girls.



“I’m moving, why are you just standing there, you told me to move”



“I usually get up early, just not lately”



It wasn’t really something we should have found funny but it truly was, honest. Maybe it was one of those moments when you had to be there to understand it.

We then travelled over to the airport, to check in just over 2 hours before our flight with a plan to eat before travelling. However upon getting there we were told we’d be delayed for 30 minutes. This soon rose and we very quickly ran out of things to do in such a tiny airport so resorted to taking amusing photos in kung fu and ballet etc poses. We found two non-operational massage chairs in a departure longue that no one else seemed to realise existed so we chilled out/mucking around in there for hours.
We finally boarded 70 minutes late after a rather amusing moment in the departure lounge, when the lounge phone keep ringing driving all passengers a little crazy (alreadya nnoyed by the delay) but no members of the ground staff were in the room soa passenger answered it:

“Umm the guy isn’t here at the moment”

He hung up the phone and sat down, the fellow passengers cheered an clapped him. The phone then rang again and everyones eyes darted toward him!

Again that may have been a ‘be there moment’ but it greatly amused all the passengers.

We were then greeted by my second set of parents (jennys) at the airport and returned to Bournemouth to catch up on neighbours and home and away (We have our priorities). On the journey home Jenny's Dad was treated to our singing and my rambling which he of course loves.

All in all a fantastic holiday was had and we both thoroughly enjoyed ourselves :D I’m sorry that it is over already :(... we both are. Being back to reality sucks ass!



Thank you to Jenny for an incredible holiday! I had a great time.. :)


Now, if ya'll excuse me - George & Callie have just got together on Grey's Anatomy Season Two DVD and I need to change the disc. I am now slightly obssesed with this show.