Travel to Alderney, Sark and Herm
Walk 1 St Peter Port Town Trail
Walk 2 St Peter Port and Fermain Bay
Walk 3 Fermain and Jerbourg Point
Walk 4 La Fosse and Icart Point
Walk 5 Le Bourg and Pointe de La Moye
Walk 6 La Prévôte and Torteval
Walk 7 Portelet Harbour and Pleinmont
Walk 8 Rocquaine Bay and Lihou Island
Walk 9 Perelle Bay and St Saviour
Walk 10 Vazon Bay and Cobo Bay
Walk 11 Cobo Bay and Saumarez Park
Walk 12 Portinfer and L’Islet
Walk 13 L’Ancresse and Vale
Walk 14 St Sampson and Belle Grève Bay
Walk 15 Beau Sejour and Le Friquet
Walk 16 St Martin and La Villette
Walk 17 St Andrew and Castel
Walk 18 King’s Mills and Fauxquets
Walk 19 Rocquaine Bay and Quanteraine
Walk 20 Guernsey Coastal Walk
Walk 21 Alderney – East
Walk 22 Alderney – West
Walk 23 Sark – South
Walk 24 Sark – North
Walk 25 Herm
APPENDIX A The Channel Island Way
APPENDIX B Route summary table
APPENDIX C Contacts
Attractively rugged rocks are seen while walking round the Hommet headland (Walk 10)
INTRODUCTION
‘Morceaux de France tombés à la mer et ramassés par l’Angleterre.’ ‘Pieces of France fallen into the sea and picked up by England.’
Victor Hugo
Small and often very busy, but also beautiful and abounding in interest, the Channel Islands are an intriguing walking destination. The self-governing ‘bailiwicks’ of Guernsey and Jersey owe their allegiance to the Crown and seem outwardly British, but are in fact an ancient remnant of the Duchy of Normandy, with Norman–French place-names very much in evidence. For British visitors, it is like being at home and abroad at the same time. French visitors, however, find it a quintessentially British experience!
Walkers will find magnificent cliff and coastal paths, golden sandy beaches, wooded valleys and quiet country lanes. Flowers will be noticed everywhere and there is a rich birdlife. There are castles, churches, ancient monuments and fortifications to visit, as well as a host of other attractions. There are efficient and frequent bus services, and easy onward links by air and sea between the islands. This guidebook describes 24 one-day walking routes, covering a total distance around 225km (140 miles), plus a long-distance coastal walk around the island of Guernsey, almost 65km (40 miles). There is also a note about the Channel Island Way, a long-distance island-hopping route embracing the entire archipelago, covering 178km (110 miles) (see Appendix A).
Location
The Channel Islands lie south of Britain, but not everyone immediately appreciates how close they are to France. The islands fit snugly into a box bounded by lines of longitude 2°W and 3°W, and lines of latitude 49°N and 50°N. This puts them well and truly in the Golfe de St Malo off the Normandy coast of France, The French refer to them as Les Îles Anglo-Normandes, and that is the clue to their curious place in geography and history. They are the only remnants of the Duchy of Normandy to remain loyal to the Crown.
Guernsey is the second largest of the Channel Islands after Jersey, with an area of only 63km2 (24½ square miles). The smaller neighbouring islands of Alderney, Sark and Herm together add less than 15km2 (6 square miles) of land area. No point on Guernsey is more than 3km (2 miles) from the sea, yet it can take weeks to explore the place thoroughly.
Geology
In Britain virtually every major geological period is represented. Channel Islands geology is more closely related to structures in France. Rocks are either very ancient or relatively recent, with hundreds of millions of years missing from the middle of the geological timescale. Fossils are virtually absent and the amount of sedimentary rock is quite limited. Most of the area is made up of ancient sediments and igneous rocks which have been heated, warped, crushed, deformed, melted and metamorphosed. Further intrusions of igneous rocks cause further confusion for the beginner, but there is a basic succession that can be presented in a simplified form.
The most ancient bedrocks in the Channel Islands are metamorphic and metasedimentary rocks known as ‘Pentevrian’ – a term used in neighbouring France. Ancient gneisses, often containing xenoliths of other long-lost strata, feature in this early series. Dating rocks of this type is possible only by examining radio-isotopes in their mineral structure, which suggest dates of formation ranging from 2500 to 1000 million years ago. The oldest rocks occur in southern Guernsey, western Alderney and possibly on Sark.
Rugged cliff scenery is enjoyed from the path all the way round Icart Point (Walk 4)
The ‘Brioverian’ sedimentary series dates from 900 to 700 million years ago. This is represented by a broad band of mudstones, siltstones and conglomerates across Jersey. In Guernsey, however, only a small area in the west contains these rocks, albeit in an altered state. One of the problems of dealing with these sediments is that even while they were being formed, they were being deformed by earthquakes, heat and pressure. Fossil remains are few, and in fact are represented only by a few worm burrows.
Following on from the formation of the Brioverian sediments, a series of igneous intrusions were squeezed into the bedrock around 650 to 500 million years ago. Interestingly, both granites and gabbros were intruded, along with intermediate