Ventnor

Ingrid and Dan had organised a touristy day of fun on the island so after a late start (due to a few fuzzy heads) and a banging breakfast of eggs, avocado and tomatoes, the five of us squeezed ourselves into Maddy’s car. Our first stop was The Nobbies where we strolled along the boardwalk with great views of the coast. Although it was a bit windy the sun was shining and there is nothing better than a sea breeze to cure a hangover.

We then visited a couple of gorgeous beaches. They were both completely empty, apart from one which had a few surfers, so we had the entire beach to ourselves. For lunch we headed into Cowes and grabbed some sushi before heading back to the house to get ready for the part of the day I was most excited about, the penguins!

Now we had loved seeing the little blue penguins in New Zealand, but they were nothing compared to this. We arrived around an hour before sunset and headed down to the viewing area. Whilst we were sussing out the ‘perfect’ spot, one of the marshals recommended sitting down on the beach in the roped off area as quite a few of the penguins would come up the beach by there. He was not wrong! The penguins were so close that I could have scooped one up and put him in my pocket, no trouble at all. In fact, it was pretty hard to restrain myself from doing that as they were soo cute! It was such a magical experience! I’m so glad that we didn’t spend loads of money on premium tickets where you are supposed to get the best view as we could not have been any closer if we tried.

Once we had seen a few groups of penguins come in we walked back out to the car park via the boardwalk. The boardwalk took us through the middle of the nesting area, so all around us were squawking penguins making their way back to their nests. It is also mating season so at times we got a little more than we bargained for!

Waiting for us at home was a delicious feast of chicken parma, chips and salad which Dan had been preparing while the rest of us were hanging out with the penguins. We did have a slight hiccup on the way home when Maddy tried to make a detour to see if we could find some wallabies or kangaroos. A wrong turn resulted in us getting the car bogged and after a few failed attempts of pushing it out, we gave up and walked back to the house (fortunately it wasn’t far at all) for dinner. The parma was delicious and a million times better than the one we had in the pub the other night. After dinner, Simon, Dan and Maddy headed back to the car with a torch and some wood to try and unbog the car. Ingrid and I opted to stay back and ‘keep the fire going’ as we didn’t fancy going out in the cold. Around an hour later they returned with the car, absolutely plastered in mud but very pleased with their achievements.Read more