By edanThis morning I woke up feeling positive and wanting to reconnect with nature. I’ve found lately that it does my mental health a lot of good. So I pulled up a map of the Isle of Man and started looking for somewhere to go, and the very north caught my eye. Point of Ayres isn’t that far from me in Douglas, and I knew there was a nature reserve there with all sorts of birds, and at different times of year seals, dolphins, even basking sharks.
At about half ten, I plotted my course and set off. I stopped at Tesco on the way for some alcohol-free beers and some halloumi kebabs and chicken kebabs, thinking I might cook them on a barbecue if the day suited it. The drive up through the mountain road was as scenic as ever. The weather was beautiful, around 20 degrees, and you could see for miles. I went through Ramsey, Bride and Andreas, and headed for the nature reserve car park, which is a couple of miles from the very northern tip. My plan was just to park up and have a nice walk north.
There were only maybe two other cars in the car park. I walked for about twenty seconds through a sand dune and suddenly I was out on this open stretch of pebbly beach on the northwest coast of the island. The first thing that struck me was that there was no one there. I could look for miles in both directions and not see a single soul. The wind was blowing quite harshly, a steady strong wind, and it felt wild in a good way.
As I started walking up the shoreline, I passed signs from the nature reserve warning about ground-nesting birds, saying to be careful not to trample nests or eggs and to stay as close to the shoreline as possible. Sure enough, there were loads of birds up there. They were all over the place, flying about as I kept moving north. At one point I looked ahead and thought there was a man standing in the distance on the peninsula. But the further I walked, the more I realised it wasn’t a person at all. It was the lighthouse, slowly coming into view. Something about that made me realise just how alone I was up there, out in nature.
I carried on and moved onto what looked like a track through the sand dunes. It looked like cars could get up there, and I did spot a couple of camper vans dotted around, and one chap barbecuing sausages. Even with that, it still felt peaceful and remote. By the time I got closer to the lighthouse, I’d already started thinking I wanted to come back with my 4x4. There were all these open tracks and green lanes through the dunes, and little barbecue spots where people had put rocks together to lift grills off the ground. They didn’t seem official, especially since the signs clearly said not to start fires or barbecues, but you could tell people used them.
In the end I turned back and made my way to the car. Before I left, I went up onto a little viewing platform where they had binoculars looking out to sea. By that point I’d walked about four miles out and back. I looked through the binoculars and within minutes I saw a family of seals just off the coast, frolicking in the water. That alone would have made the trip feel worth it.
Then I went back down to the car park and noticed a little hut for the nature reserve. I went inside and found an elderly lady working there, promoting the wildlife and telling people about the reserve. We chatted for about fifteen minutes. She had me sit down and watch a video on the television about all the wildlife that can be seen there, and she pointed out some ultra-rare wild orchids growing just outside, native to that area. I left a small donation, said goodbye, and got back in the car.
After that I drove up toward the lighthouse on the main road, and soon enough I found the off-road tracks I’d been hoping for. I had a lot of glee taking the Range Rover off-road through the sand dunes and over the rocky tracks by the coastline. After a while I parked up, angled the car to break the wind, and set out my little camping chair and barbecue. Sitting there, with the sea just beyond the beach below me, I could watch families of seals in the water while I relaxed. I must have spent a couple of hours there.
Eventually I headed back through Ramsey and stopped at Tesco again to get some bits for the evening, including a couple of ciders, before making my way back to Douglas. On the drive home through the mountain road, I rang my wife Laura and just gushed to her about what a wonderful day I’d had. It had started as a simple day trip, really just me looking at a map in the morning, and somehow turned into one of those days where the island gives you exactly what you were hoping to find.