Easter 09 Adventure - Day 2

More quick notes from our Easter trip (re Good Friday, 10 April 09): • The hostel room had a splendid view over the hills and water though it was raining a little on our awakening. • We decided to put off our walk and stuck to the car for most of the day because of the rain. However, we ended up driving right around the whole island. • We joined the English Heritage group at Osborne House and then enjoyed looking through the gardens, Swiss Cottage and the House itself which was filled with Victoriana furniture. I particularly liked the final room which was filled with objects given to Queen Victoria from people from India. There were detailed delicate ivory carving, marble inlaid work, and silver work. Exquisite. The whole room itself was cream in colour from about waist height over the ceiling and covered in intricate carving. • The daffodils and blossoms were marvellous everywhere we went. • Later in the afternoon I thought we’d be driving along a superb part of the coastline but unfortunately we ended up in such deep fog or cloud for that section that we could barely see a few metres ahead of us! • We had bought a whole Cowes sea bass earlier in the day and so roasted it whole in the oven for dinner that evening. I think it must have been one of the most splendid meals ever cooked in a YHA! Couscous with okra, whole stuffed fish, and wonderfully fresh asparagus – the first of the season, grown through seaweed apparently, bought that afternoon from a garlic farm! By the way, at the garlic farm, Dwayne tried some Dragon’s Blood – some sort of chilli paste – that was so hot that he immediately started crying! A little girl walking past in the shop looked so horrified when she saw him appearing so upset that I felt I had to explain to her what was wrong! Her mum then was explaining why this big man was crying in a shop! We also bought some fabulous chutneys and pesto sauce. • At the north of the island we stopped and walked through Cowes – bought the fish, and some swimwear (so we had something to wear kayaking the following day!) – and some of the Isle of Wight blue cheese that is supposed to have won best English cheese award. Unfortunately we found a parking ticket when we returned to our car! • Dwayne ran over a rabbit [that's all I recorded about that - not that exciting really] • After dinner, we drove to see the sun set behind the magnificent white 'Needles', the long white peninsula which is probably the Isle of Wight's most renowned natural feature.