The Way of the Gull - Day 6 - Ramsey to Laxey - 13 miles

..." an interesting mix of cliff and glen, meadow and lane ...the walking is rocky in places and demands care. The footpath makes and descends 1200 ft. in 3 visits to sea level from the coastal plateau. The gradients are so easy that they mostly pass unnoticed.."  -  my italics!

We started from the Queen's Pier in Ramsey -

one dilapidated structure in the midst of another 4!
A good coastal footpath contoured the hillside out of the town and on up to Maughold Head

The view from the top

Brian up on his plinth
The path then dropped down to Maughold village where, in the churchyard, there is an important collection of ancient stones - 44 pieces, crosses and slabs dating from the 6-12th centuries - and these we duly perused.

The next section was mainly on lanes for some time until we desended into the deep valley of Glen Cornaa - always looking out for the unmanned railway crossings of the Manx electric railway. Although the carriages with leather seats and tassels look quaint, and the open-sided wooden slat seats carriages look like something you'd find in the wilds of Bolivia transporting bowler-hatted women taking chickens to market, if you don't keep your wits about you, no doubt you'll be mown down mercilessly. Luckily you can hear one coming as they rattle rather a lot.

The beach at the end of the glen, Port Cornaa, was a timely snack stop before continuing along the road for the next section towards Dhoon Glen. The main advantage of the Manx electric railway is that it has small stations along the route and some of them have cafes. After struggling up a long hill, on finding this one open it seemed churlish not to offer them our trade.

Word of the day : gull-uttony - the incessant devouring of cakes at every conceivable opportunity.

Replete we staggered down the rest of the road into Laxey, with it's small interesting harbour and long sandy beach

We were just in time to catch the last tram back to Ramsey - a bone-rattling good ride .....if slightly cold ( as we'd opted for the tourist trap of the Bolivian carriages )