Islands

[squirmelia]

Visiting an island is often the closest we can get to visiting another planet. We hope for adventures. intrigue and something that will be different about the island than where we are from (which may well be just another larger island). Television programmes I watched during my childhood strengthened this notion by containing images of beautiful and sometimes weird islands, such as Kirrin Island, Wildcat Island, the flying island of Laputa, the island of Naboombu, and many others that I would have liked to visit if only they existed.

Last weekend, I think I visited three islands- Brownsea Island, Hayling Island and Portsea Island. Out of those, it was Brownsea Island that I spent the longest in. The island is situated near to Poole in Dorset, and is about 1.5 miles long and 0.75 miles wide. It's home to red squirrels (grey squirrels were never introduced), deer, vivid swarms of peacocks, and groups of scouts who camp there, due to it being well known as the place that Lord Baden-Powell first held a camp.

The island also has easy to find traces of the previous inhabitants of the island - people who worked in a pottery factory in the late 1800s. A stretch of beach I walked across was laden with abandoned pottery (as well as pink seaweed), and bricks were scattered, covered in tufts of moss, slightly inland.

The appeal of an island seems to be often tied in with the notion of escape, either from society by being on the island or trying to escape from the island itself, whether because of the island's inhabitants, the treacherous conditions or something else out of the ordinary. Discovering the amount of islands in England was a surprise to me. Sure, I have been to Burgh Island, St Michael's Mount, Monkey Island and various others, but I had never realised just how easy it is to travel to an island and pretend to be marooned on a strange, different planet for a few hours. I guess that is what Bank Holidays are for.

Comments

[doctor-bob.livejournal.com]

There is a district in Sheffield called Kelham Island. Don't think there's even any water nearby or anything.

Maybe they thought just giving it the name would instil feelings of relaxing on a the beach of a small remote land mass.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

The first hits on Google for Kelham Island seem to be for a brewery. Therefore, it is likely that it is a land mass surrounded by beer!

[doctor-bob.livejournal.com]

I think you're probably right, good detective work!

[rowan-leigh.livejournal.com]

I visited Brownsea Island on a school trip when I was 9. I dropped my flask into the harbour and the other children told me that my mother would be cross with me. I looked forward to the moment of telling her with dread but when I did tell her, she laughed.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Ahh. I used to deliberately throw my worksheets and myself into the water on schooltrips. :)

Monkey Island?

[erinaf.livejournal.com]

That's not just a video game?!

If you ever come to MA there is an island in Boston harbor with an old Civil War fort on it that's supposedly haunted. I used to love going there as a kid

Re: Monkey Island?

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

I did write an entry about it a while back - I'll try to find it. I am unsure whether it is a "real" island though. It's an island in the Thames, named that because monks lived there.

Re: Monkey Island?

[billyabbott.livejournal.com]

I've been told there's a nice restaurant near there...it's on my "to find" list.
http://www.streetmap.co.uk/streetmap.dll?G2M?X=491473&Y=179083&A=Y&Z=1

Re: Monkey Island?

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Monkey Island, Berkshire:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/squirmelia/2003/05/05/

Wow, that's exactly 2 years ago that I wrote that!

Re: Monkey Island?

[erinaf.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. That's a great entry! :) I must have missed that one. Mark tells me to look behind me there's a 3 headed monkey all the time ;)

Re: Monkey Island?

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

If you do look behind you, do you actually see 3 headed monkeys?

Re: Monkey Island?

[erinaf.livejournal.com]

No but he does usually get away with whatever he was districating me with ;) And if its our house there usually are several one headed monkeys in view ;)

Re: Monkey Island?

[cerebros-vivos.livejournal.com]

Maybe the answer to the question the has haunted mankind sinse it's humble beginnings can be answered there?

"How much would could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"

[gentio.livejournal.com]

I used to live near Brownsea.. and did infact go on a trip there with my cub pack, as of course all good cubs should :) there's a few other islands around there as well.. if i remember rightly.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, there semed to be quite a few islands around there, but unfortunately it was rather foggy, so I didn't get a good look. I never visited it when I was a Brownie, so I have to make up for it now. :)

[tsuki-chama.livejournal.com]

There's another four, in fact ^_^

Furzey island is the next largest - owned by BP for oil exploration as far as I know. You can probably land without trouble, but there's nowhere really to explore.
The others are Green Island, Long Island and Round Island; all privately owned. They're all places I've sailed to and landed, but none of the others are as big or as explorable as Brownsea...

[gentio.livejournal.com]

That's the ones! I had "Fury Island" floating about my head but thought an Island named that would just be too cool.

[billyabbott.livejournal.com]

I keep meaning to go back to Herm (http://www.herm-island.com).
They have a campsite there pretty much at the highest point of the island and it slopes down to the sea giving a view over to Sark - this was my view every morning when I woke up, which was rather nice.
Don't go there on Bank Holidays though - it's only small and it fills up with people way too easily then.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

Herm makes it sound like the island might have many hermits? Looked at the website, and it seems to be the Channel Islands.. is that right?

[billyabbott.livejournal.com]

Yup - a short boat ride away from Guernsey. I've got a friend who has been going there for years and stays in the hotel - the island is of such a size that he quite literally knows every inch of the place, and he still goes back.

Unfortunately no hermits that I saw. Lots of Scots and New Zealanders running the campsite though. My intention last time was to go and sit on top of a hill and read a few books - I did pretty well on that front.

[mikej-uk.livejournal.com]

Herm has lots of rabbits and shells, but no hermits that I've ever seen :) Stayed over there for a few days a couple of years back in one of the holiday cottages (I live in Guernsey) - great place to visit.

[djmindwarp.livejournal.com]

only one i've been on is Holy Island, aka Lindisfarne, which was pretty cool. especially because i saw it from the train a couple of weeks before i went; seeing the castle rising out on the horizon over the water was really cool. even though it was small, climbing around on the ruins of the monastery was fun, as was sneaking into the lime kiln, and climbing on the rocks on the beach.

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[djmindwarp.livejournal.com]

oh yeah, and the weather was horrible, which ruined the view of the land, but it did make it seem extraterrestrial. and knowing that in a few hours the tide would come in and the only way off the island would be by boat, because the road would be underwater. some day i think i'll take a kayak off the road, have lunch and wait for the tide to come in.

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