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

[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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