A BEGINNERS GUIDE TO GUERNSEY
St Peter Port to Jerbourg
This first leg of the walk was a six-mile
jaunt to Jerbourg point, the most
south-easterly part of the island. It gave us
a good taste of Guernsey’s three top
features: rugged coastline with impossibly
pristine bays; old military relics with a
story or two to tell; and a unique cuisine
conjured from fresh, local sources and
years of French influence.
As predicted by the Tourist Information
advisor, the path was easy to find from the
port and, after passing the enticing
rock-hewn bathing pools at La Vallette, it
took us up into the woodland overlooking
St Peter Port. The sky was overcast yet the air
was moist with spring warmth. Aside from
the distant hum of a plane and the echo
of renovations taking place at a sprawling
nearby mansion, our journey was peaceful.
The first of the military relics is Clarence
Battery. The island’s military headquarters
from the 1780s and throughout the
Napoleonic wars, it was repurposed by the
German Luftwaffe as their radar station
when the entire island was occupied during
WWII. The building is vastly overgrown
now, with the former magazine stores
covered in grass and the surrounding area
shrouded in woodland.
The coast path took us up and up again
on long stone steps, through sycamore, ash
and elm woods. Then it opened out into a
magical dell covered in just-past-their best
bluebells – as well as less familiar ‘white bells’
- and we wondered if perhaps we’d walked
into a fairytale. The air was perfectly still
and moist with a faint garlicky smell. Then
the woodland opened out again into sea
views and my ears were filled with the ever-
present breath-like sound of the swash and
backwash of the waves massaging the rocks
below. The bluebells stayed with us, flanking
our way like crowds at a royal procession
and ushered us down into Fermain Bay.
Here we had our first indication of the
‘tasty’ part of the walk: the vast menu at the
award-winning Fermain Bay beach café –
featuring smoked salmon, prawn and crab
sandwiches, steak on ciabatta, Cajun
pan-fried salmon sandwiches – and a cake
menu and wine list which each run to an
entire side of A4.
Fuelled by banoffee pie, we left the
seclusion of the bay behind and pushed
on – up and down as the undulations of the
cliff path dictated – our city legs stretching
into proper use. The deciduous woodland
was replaced by pinewoods and, as late
afternoon wore on, the clouds dispersed and
the sunlight picked out the pigments on
62 The Great Outdoors July 2019