Walk the Channel Islands Way

There’s something magical about walking around an island, especially one that you can circumnavigate in a day or two, but how about walking around five islands? The new 115-mile Channel Islands Way gives you that opportunity, taking walkers on a gentle amble around the coastlines of Jersey, Guernsey, Alderney, Sark and Herm with the added excitement of boat trips between each. Since I like walking, I like boats and I had never been to the Channel Islands, I had to head south to take in some of the new trail over a couple of days.

Shimmering Sark

So it is that I find myself tramping down a shady woodland path to Dixcart Bay on Sark, in the company of walking guide Arthur Lamy. Arthur is a Jersey native who put together the Channel Islands Way after two years of navigating around a network of coastal paths, lanes, dirt tracks and ferry crossings. ‘The trail was the idea of local woman Jenny Bridge,’ Arthur says, ‘but as a Blue Badge walking guide I was fortunate enough to get the job of putting her idea literally on the map.’ Although Arthur’s two years wandering around the islands must have been a labour of love, it has some very obvious perks.

The view below us at Dixcart Bay of the shimmering sea lapping on to the sand and pebbles, with just one couple and their small daughter enjoying it all, for example. Our day on Sark lives up to my expectations of the tiny island, which I had wanted to visit since I was ten, when Adam, a school friend, told me of his summer holidays in the Channel Islands – his descriptions of Sark’s quiet beaches populated by just a few other families, of warm blue seas you could splash around in all day, and of roads without cars where you could ride your bike between beaches. Of course this would all have changed a lot by now, I supposed… But, thankfully, it hasn’t.

Sark’s beaches remain peaceful, their waters remain a translucent blue-green and the few roads remain car free, making it so relaxing that when we broke our walk for lunch at the lovely old La Sablonnerie Restaurant on Little Sark (reached via the alarmingly steep, sided natural bridge of La Coupée – spectacular coastal views guaranteed), I was tempted to stay for the night, as suggested by exuberant owner Elizabeth Perrée. But men who are on a mission to circumnavigate islands – even relatively small ones – can’t pull over at the first comfortable hotel they come across, so we make our excuses and continue on our way.

Bustling Jersey

Our way meanders slowly back to the ferry and on to Jersey, a very different island to Sark. Here, after a good night’s kip in the idiosyncratic Undercliff Guest House, above the brightly bobbing boats of Bouley Bay, Arthur and I stride out along Jersey’s wind-whipped northern coast.

Quiet and rugged, this stretch of the Channel Islands Way reminds me of my home in Pembrokeshire – apart from the splendid views across the sea to mainland France. Along the way Arthur tells me of Jersey’s rich cultural heritage. I expected the island to be English speaking, adorned with exotic sounding French place names (which it is), but there’s a lot more to it than French and English cultures rubbing happily along together.

Irish, Austrians, Italians, Madeirans and Poles are some of the other nationalities that have settled here over the centuries, giving it a cosmopolitan air, especially around the capital St Helier. This busier and more peopled aspect of Jersey becomes apparent in the afternoon, when we nip across to the south coast in Arthur’s old Morris 1000 to tramp the eight miles or so of the Channel Islands Way from Corbière Point – dominated by its lighthouse and German WWII defences, to the huge, golden arc of St Aubin’s Bay.

Where to stay

La Sablonnerie Hotel and Restaurant, Little Sark. B&B from £77.50 per person (01481 832061, www.sablonneriesark.com )