Appropriately put I started my journey quite early in the morning not anticipating to pass a down with the name Week Down. Hehehe...the early morning mist lit my way and I was all in awe. This was better than my very missed double expresso I usually have in the morning.
After passing through Stenbury Down I made it to what at first appeared to me to be an abandoned mansion. It certainly was but of course the Islanders found it to be quite the Tourist attraction which I didn't notice until I took a closer look. To say the least it was magnificently set against the plush green of Stenbury Down. This is a picture of Appuldurcombe House, open to the public for viewing from the 16th of March to the 30th of September, from 10am to 4pm daily.
After seeing the sights of such magnificent historical architecture I was later stunned by the sight of this church which obviously still kept its crypt intact. Godshill Church for Easter Sunday and I am not even Christrain or anything like that.
After passing through Rookley, Gatcombe and Bowcombe I was hit by a bad ice storm as I climbed Joy Hill, the highest point on the Isle of Wight. Yes, there was an ice storm with winds strong enough to push me back considerably as I climbed the side of the hill. The view was well worth battling the wind and hail that tried to slow me down. I was determined despite the bad weather and to say the least the photo says exactly how I felt. I definitely had conquered myself and the hill. 
After descending the huge hill and warming myself in the coming sun I stopped at a pub in front of Carisbrooke Castle called the Waverly (a bit ironic really since my University resides in Waverly Borough).
After walking so much I knew that of the most enchanted places I had been to yet was Parkhurst Forrest. I decided that is was only appropriate to return here for Easter Night and have a good fire with bacon and the warmth of the enchanted forest to keep me company. I was lucky on my return and found the forest to be equipped with a couple of shabby looking attempts at forts made from wood. I just want to say that if anybody out there decides to do this try using dead wood. Most of what these forts were made from were stripped from trees. Unless you are going make a fire I don't suggest ripping the forest to pieces. After making your fire always remember to dig a hole and empty the remains of your fire into the earth just to make sure everything is safely extinguished.
I arrived back in Newport early in the morning asking a street cleaner if he knew about a coffee house that was open. This being Easter Weekend he smiled and said something about McDonalds at which point it was clear to him I wanted real coffee. He pointed me off to a place called Joes where I was made welcome during the last 10 minutes of their official opening time. From Newport I quickly walked back towards Cowes for the final showdown. I would be spending the next two nights in Cowes staking out the conference hall at the Cowes Yacht Haven.
On the 24th of March I did a bit of walking down to East Cowes taking the floating bridge from west Cowes and back. I slept in a huge field in Northwood. As usual the early bird gets the worm in this case I got a snapshot of the morning sunrise.
My first sight on the morning of the 26th of March!Its funny what sleeping outside does. The Eco-Island conference was supposed to start at 8:30 but I got there at 7:30 in the morning. Most of the delegates didn't arrive until 9:00 but hey they didn't wake up in the church yard in Cowes. Hehehe, actually the sea gulls and the crows woke me up around 4:00 in the morning and the church bells were constantly ringing every hour, I still don't know if I was actually sleeping or dreaming all of this up.
University Vice-Chancellor Professor Bill Wakeham discusses rising sea levels on the Isle of Wight.I go to the University of Farnham and I am often not happy to hear professors spoon feeding kids at school and I use the term "kids" because there are not many of them that use the knowledge they are given during their term to implement in their everyday lives. It was a pleasure to hear University Vice-Chancellor Professor Bill Wakeham talk about education in such a stern way. I interviewed him on several questions concerning ecology...if you are interested you should visit my webpage. Anyway professor Wakeham clearly repeated over and over that "a serious behaviour change" was needed by all. He also said "Practical implementation and skill development needs to be sustainable in ecological ways." He also pointed out because of the lack of knowledge by so many people about climate change people weren't taking global warming so seriously but recent reports of the years climate has shown people that the threat is a serious one.
The thing is I am a spiritual person but I am not a practicing religious person in the sense that I belong to any church, but I give it up to Bishop of Portsmouth Sir Rt Revd Dr Kenneth Stevenson in his speech during the Eco-island conference. He made it clear to me and others that his presence was more of a symbolic appearance and that civilization owed it to the future to engage itself in a symbolic action to change the ecology problems we all face today. I have never been to mass in my life but if they speak like this I can't imagine why I wouldn't go just to hear poetic spoken words, spoken in clarity might I add. In no way was he trying to pull any strings. He told people that he saw "a lack of common will." Mr Stevenson has worked on many projects where I give him respect for ACTION carried out to help others strive and learn how to do it on their own. For example the Eden Project, Turn Lyme Green, or Don't Forget Your Leech Sucks.
Dame Ellen is the woman in the middle. University Vice-Chancellor Professor Bill Wakeham to the left and some business dude I didn't get along with very well. He was jealous when a speaker at the conference congratulated me for arriving to the conference by foot. Before leaving the conference he is quoted having said to someone "I just want to say one thing, I came to the conference in a Ford Civic!"After all the long walk and several days of eco-sleeping as I call it. This means sleeping outside in nature and waking up at the sound of the morning birds (usually 6:30) the words of world renowned Dame Ellen Macarthur made my effort all worth the while; "sometimes looking inwards can have a positive change." She was of course talking about how the Isle of Wight should and could offer the world a good example of being a functioning eco-friendly place to live and prosper. One other important motto she spoke of is; "If you can't reduce it re-use it."
