After our first few days on the Isle of Wight it was the time to explore the Western side of the island.
The Needles
No visit to the Isle of Wight would be complete without visiting The Needles on the extreme West of the island. It was £5 to park all day at The Needles Landmark Attraction. My advice would be to try and get there early in the day especially if you want to go down on the chair lift to the beach at Alum Bay.
Alum Bay via the chairlift
After a short time queuing this was my first view of The Needles.
The ride down was a little bit steeper than expected!
Once on the beach it was possible to see the many colours of the cliff that have made this bay famous.
Another advantage of being early was that there were no queues to catch one of the pleasure boats that take visitors out to The Needles.
On the way there we were able to see the gun ports cut into the cliff that were part of the Old Battery. We went close enough to The Needles for this image.
This image shows the different colours of the cliffs at Alum Bay
Going back up on the chairlift was a lot easier and looking at everyone using the steps a lot less tiring too.
By the time I returned the queue for the chairlift was very long rather than the short queue of 20 or so people that I encountered at 10 am.
At the pedestrian entrance for The Needles Landmark Attraction is a turning circle for buses and coaches. This is where open top buses call on their way to and from the Nation Trust properties closer to The Needles. There is not supposed to be any accesses by private vehicles to these sites so we caught the next open top bus as it was an estimated 30/40 minute walk to get there on foot.
The New Battery
After leaving the bus our first stop was the remains of the rocket testing gantries erected to test the UK’s only indigenous rockets developed during the Cold War. The gantries may have all gone but the bases of where the rockets were tested remain.
From the side of the nearest test area is a viewing area that allows another view of The Needles.
The Old Battery
Below the rocket testing sites is the Old Battery. This is a National Trust site also and has cannons in some of its gun emplacements. It was interesting to note that from the square in the Old Battery, the first tests of anti-aircraft guns were made in WW-1 against a kites being towed by a destroyer through the straits below.
In the middle of the square was a tight spiral staircase that went down into the rocks and lead to long series of tunnels and eventually to a searchlight pit cut out into the cliff that overlooked The Needles.
This was made at the end of the 19th century and was there to illuminate any enemy ships approaching the straits and overlooked The Needles.
Mottistone Gardens
After leaving The The Needles we went to Mottistone Gardens which is one of the National Trust properties on the island. The house on the property is only open a couple of times a year. We had a lunch of sandwiches in the tea-garden and afterwards went on a walk through some of the gardens near to the house.
It was a beautiful sunset over The Solent.
