There are a few places in the UK that I had always wanted to visit. Isle of Wight, being one of them. I had always heard that this small island is beautiful but a lot windy. So when I came to the UK this time, i planned a trip to the Isle of Wight in the first instance. Instead of planning a complete solo trip, I thought of booking a seat with one of the tour agents in the area, The Angel Tours.
Angel tours plans day trips to multiple places around London They would pick you up from the East Ham station early morning and drop you at the same location. So I planned a trip with them and booked myself in. The plan was to meet at the East Ham station at 6:15 AM, and start towards the destination.
I reached there on time. There was a Ford transit, 17 seat waiting for us. As I boarded the mini coach, I realized that all the people inside were Indians. We started out journey around 6:30 towards Southampton which was almost 100 Miles from London. The journey to Southampton was good. It took us a little over 2 hours to reach Southampton from where we were to board the Ferry to the Isle of Wight. Since I woke up early morning on a sunday, part of the journey went sleeping and the rest went by observing and appreciating the beauty of the surroundings.
Around 09:00 we reached Southampton Ferry terminal from where we were to board the Red Funnel ferry for Coves, Isle of Wight. Since we were booked to board the 10:00 AM ferry, we were to wait in the terminal parking before our vehicle and us, could be loaded into the Ferry. Soon around 09:45 AM we parked our mini coach in the ferry and headed towards the upper deck which was the passenger area and had restaurant for breakfast.
Post having my breakfast in the restaurant, I headed towards the topmost deck, which gave a beautiful view of the English Channel which we were crossing in the ferry, with multiple different cargo and oil ships parked or moving. This journey in the ferry was almost an hour long which started at 10:00AM. Sitting on the deck, watching the ships move around was one of the best views to watch.
Around 10:45 AM, the captain alarmed that we were about to dock into the Coves terminal and that we should head back towards our vehicles. We headed towards our vehicle, and once the gates of the ferry opened, we were on our way out and towards the Needles Landmark.
Needles Landmark Attraction was almost the western most point of the Isle of Wight. This was a small adventure park with many different rides. We reached there almost in 45-50 minutes from the terminal. Once there, we started exploring the place. There was restaurant, go karting, mini golf etc. We roamed around for some time exploring the place and then headed towards the chair lifts, which would take you down to the Needles beach. This beach was a pebble beach and the lift the descend from the start point of the chair lift to the beach was very steep. The journey down the cliff to the beach would definitely give goosebumps.
This was a small but enjoyable ride. There were many different water activities on the beach. Kayaking, High speed boat riding, slow boat riding, banana boat etc being some of them. Since the weather was nice and the pleasant wind was blowing, I chose to go for the High speed boat ride expecting it to be adventurous. This was probably the best choice. The boat would seat 14-16 people in the central row for a ride. Once the boat would gain speed, the driver started taking multiple sharp twists and turns, jumping off the waves etc. This was almost a 15 minute ride but it was something that I enjoyed a lot. This is something I would definitely recommend someone visiting the Isle of Wight.
Once back from the boat ride, I headed back on the cliff via the chair lift and to the restaurant for lunch and once I had my lunch, which included hot chocolate and peanuts, I headed towards the parking to board the coach to the next destination, which was the Isle of Wight Pearls.
Since Isle of Wight Pearls was almost 15-20 mins away from the Needles Landmark, we stopped at the Freshwater Bay for 10 minutes to feel the beauty of the sea and then reached the Isle of Wight Pearls.
Isle of Wight Pearls is kind of a jewelry shopping center in the area. This was solely based on the pearls. There were many jewelries made from the pearls on sale. We explored the place for some time to admire the beautiful jewelry and then headed towards the restaurant for some proper lunch. Just outside the restaurant, landscape was so beautiful that it becomes very difficult to get up and move away from there. We spent around half an hour in the place sitting, enjoying lunch and capturing the beautiful landscape. Post this, we headed towards the Shanklin beach which was almost 40 mins. away.
Shanklin Beach was on the easter side of the island in the city of Shanklin. You would have to cross the city to reach the beach. This was a sandy beach with multiple different shops facing the shore. This was filled with people enjoying the water, resting or sun bathing in the sand etc. We spent more than an hour here, capturing the beauty of the place.
We started from Shanklin Beach around 16:30 to reach the terminal since we were booked into the 17:30 Red Funnel ferry from the Coves into Southampton, We crossed the Queen Victoria and Crown Princess cruises on the way which were headed towards Australia and Europe. It took us almost 3 hours to reach London from Southampton, beating the traffic in London. Around 21:30, we reached our destination, marking an end to a beautiful day.
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