Day #14 – Off the Calf and more sightseeing

Steve enjoying the morning

This morning I woke up to LOTS of wind!  I thought “Oh no!  We could be stuck on the island for another day!”  Nicola had told tales of people stranded on the island up to 17 days!  And to my credit, Nicola woke up having the same feelings.  But, it turned out that the wind was from the west, and the water on the east side really wasn’t bad.

The view from my bed

Ready to head back!

We had a simple breakfast of cereal, toast and coffee before packing up and getting ready to leave.  It took most of the morning to organize ourselves.  The kids played outside near the house (there were snails which provided HOURS of FUN!) while we got ready to leave.  By 11:15 we had everything in the courtyard, and the warden came by with his tractor to pick everything up while we made the trek back down to the harbor. 

Chris and Nicola

We waited awhile for the boat (as Chris says, they are on Island time), but it came in time and we packed up our stuff and headed out.  We had two other passengers with us.  One was a student who had studied on the island for the past seven weeks, and the other was also a researcher.

Cow Harbor as seen from the mainland

Once docked, we headed over to the visitor’s center on the southern tip of the main island for lunch (the center overlooks Calf of Man, so we could sit in comfort and see where whe had gotten pelted with rain the day before!)  Lunch was wonderful, and soon we were on our way to see more things….much to Andy’s dismay as none of us had taken showers that morning and he HATES not having a shower first thing in the morning!

Cregneash

 

Our first stop after lunch was Cregneash, a small historical village where the movie Waking Ned Devine was filmed.  What an adorable town!  We walked around the town, but didn’t stay long enough to buy tickets to go inside the buildings.  After a walk around the village, we got back in the cars and headed to Castle Rushen in Castletown. 

Pete a bit too excited to be in locks!

Castle Rushen is one of the best intact Medieval Castles in the British Isles and is still used as a courthouse and museum.  We bought tickets and took the tour through the entire castle.  It was a lot of fun, with some rooms having been set up as they would have looked in medieval times.  We went as high as the turrets, and as low as the dungeon, and explored everything inbetween.

The Isle of Man!

After our tour of the castle, we headed over to a pub for some drinks before going over to the local airport for a fly around the island!  One of Chris and Nicola’s friends is a pilot and owns a small 6-seater plane.  He was so kind to take the five of us up and give one big circle around the entire island, pointing out points of interest, including the Jagus’ house!  None of us had ever been up in such a small plane. !  It was a really wonderful trip and quite thrilling.

After we landed, we headed over to a pub for dinner nearby.  The pilot joined us for a drink before having to go.  Steve, Emily and I had the steak pie, and it was really yummy…well worth the wait.

Casa del Jagi!

After dinner, we headed home in the dark with sleepy, dirty children and cars still stuffed with our Calf of Man trip.  We unloaded the cars, got the little ones to bed and visited for a bit before heading to bed.  The older kids tried decided to try and get in as much Harry Potter as possible bedtime as we are seeing the last movie tomorrow.  Sadly, they were too tired and only saw #5.  #6 and #7 part 1 would have to wait for another day.  I can’t believe they even tried!