I had been waiting for a glorious, clear day to set out on my walk along the iconic Tennyson Down from the Needles. Many holidaymakers clearly had the same thought and the road into the Needles Pleasure Park was jammed with visitors. On heading uphill from the car park, I paused to inspect this tacky/retro chic gnome garden.
Looking back from the footpath along the northern edge of Alum Bay affords great views of the coloured cliffs and the pleasure boats drifting in the bay.
It was Cowes Week and I was just too late to catch all but this last big yacht sailing past - so annoying!
The bay can be accessed by chair lift and boat trips around the Needles leave from the jetty.
The verticle strata of the Alum Bay cliffs offer a full sequence from the Upper Cretaceous (142-65 million years ago) Chalk to the Bembridge Limestone of Oligocene age (30 million years old), and many significant fossils have been found here. The Natural England website explains, "The rock sequence provides a complete section from the Reading Clay, which rests unconfortably upon the Chalk, up through the Oldhaven Formation, London Clay, Bracklesham Group, Barton Clay, Barton Sand, Headon Hill Formation and into the Bembridge Limestone Formation...The famous coloured sands of Alum Bay are largely found within the outcrop of the Bracklesham Group in the central part of Alum Bay."
The lighthouse protects shipping from the treacherous rocks and was the first one was founded by Trinity House in 1785, on the clifftop above Scratchell's Bay. Being often hidden in fog, Trinity House designed the current lighthouse on the outer chalk stack and a helipad was added in 1987. The last resident lighthouse keeper left in 1994 when the lighthouse was automated.
The Needles are pointed stacks of a layer of chalk which runs across the island from Culver Cliff to Tennyson Down and then continues under the Solent to Dorset and were once connected to Old Harry Rocks near Swanage.
This is the remains of the rocket launch site, when the British Government set out to develop ballistic missiles in the fifties. Prototypes, code-named Black Knight, were designed by Saunders Roe of Cowes and tested here before being shipped to Woomera in Australia. The site was later used for a top secret Space rocket and missile project, with over 2,000 sq ft of control rooms and up to 240 employees working on the development of the space rockets Black Night and Black Arrow.
Leaving the Needles site, the footpath leads up over Tennyson Down (NT), named after the poet who lived at Farringford just below at Freshwater Bay and whose favourite walk this was, saying the air was worth 'sixpence a pint'. The Tennyson Trail begins here and finishes 15 miles to the east at Carisbrooke Castle.
On the top of the hill is the Tennyson Memorial, a granite cross erected after his death in 1862.
Fine view stretch out across to Hurst Castle and the Dorset coast.
The path descends to Freshwater Bay with its crescent of beach and two more chalk stacks.
A few cattle and many rabbits keep the grassland cropped and easy to walk.
The path comes out by Dimbola Lodge the museum devoted to the Victorian pioneer photographer Julia Margaret Cameron.
From here my walk continues north inland along the Freshwater Way cycle track which follows the river Yar. The path and causeway across the river is reached by turning left into Afton Rd then Manor Rd, to come out here at Afton Thatch.
This is a lovely spot near All Saints Church, Freshwater with its memorials to the Tennyson family, and the swans and waterfowl nestling under the bridge.
Most of the pathway is between trees alongside wide reed banks but there are glimpses of the river as we approach Yarmouth.
The area is full of water birds and I caught this heron a way off among the reeds. 
Yachts are moored up at the entrance to the river and the car ferry can be seen plying back and forth to Lymington.
The path enters the town by the Old Mill.
Once more I was just too late to catch the big yachts crossing through on their way back to Cowes, but I spotted some stragglers.
Walk Details
Distance: 7.5 miles
Start: Needles Pleasure Park
Finish: Yarmouth Harbour
Time: 4 hours
Bus: Island Coaster to Alum Bay, No 7 to Newport, No 12 to Freshwater Bay
Refreshments and WC: The Needles Pleasure Park and Old Battery Cafe, Freshwater Bay and Yarmouth.
