Am I ever knackered! I don’t think I truly knew the meaning of the word, but now that I’ve spent my day cycling 50 kilometres or so around the south half of the Isle of Man, and on a mountain bike too, I think I’m finally starting to grasp the concept.

I woke up early this morning and got a spot of tea, cereal and croissants with Christine and after a quick stop to the cashpoint (ATM for you Yankees) I had enough money to hire myself a bicycle for the day. I was getting ready to set out after I returned, but Auntie Ann needed me to stop by the corner store for some tobacco and papers for it so I made a quick detour for the dear woman. Christine even made a fine pack lunch for me before I left, cheese and lettuce and tomato sandwiches, an apple, and some cookies. Taking my pack to my back and my hat to my head, I set off again for the bike shop at about 9:35 or so.

Unfortunately, I was too late yet again for a hybrid cycle (at least this shop offered them as hire options, compared with Salisbury!) and they had a mountain bike for me. It was at least larger than my previous “experience” and I was sure to have them raise the seat up as high as it could go. I borrowed a detailed map of the entire island from them too, and was ready to set off.

Thankfully before I left, they had shown me a slightly more scenic route through the old Heritage Trail instead of my previous thought, which was to take the Peel Road instead. The trail was beautiful, if a bit chilly at that point in the morning but I was right next to a bubbling stream as well. There are purplish flowers of some unknown variety everywhere on the Island, and all manner of sorts of tropical looking plants. I believe I saw some mistletoe too; the first time I’ve ever seen it alive instead of hanging from a doorframe!

As that first leg of the trip is only 14k or so, it wasn’t long before I came upon the ancient capitol village of St. Johns, known for the manmade hill at its centre called Tynwald Hill, where for thousands of years was the literal seat of Manx government, where the king would sit with his courtiers before him. They say that the hill, which looks like a 3 layer cake of green sod, was originally constructed with bits of earth from every parish on the Isle, in order to be all-encompassing. I didn’t stay too long, but it was humbling to think that I was standing upon the seat of governance for one of the oldest cultures in the world.

By this point, I was almost to Peel. Over the course of the past 45 minutes of riding, I had become very, very glad that I had a mountain bike instead of a road or hybrid bike; I won’t say that the trail across the East-West line of the Island was in “disrepair” but there were definitely parts of it that were about 8 centimetres across and very, very muddy. Others were packed with stones that made me wish I had brought some sort of padding for my behind. Needless to say, I rode into Peel wincing slightly.

However, the sight of the ancient castle before me took my breath away. Set on an island which at one point could have been described as “lonely” if not for the bridge they’ve attached to it from the mainland, the castle was a ruined colossus constructed of ancient red stones and mortar. I paid my fee (receiving the bizarre Manx pound coins in change; souvenirs I suppose!) and spent the next hour listening to an audio recording explaining to me the various parts of the ancient castle and their function. It was interesting because the Belfry tower at the centre of the castle was originally constructed in 850 AD by ancient monks and other ecclesiastical persons, but over the course of the thousand years hence it was used by all manner of military types and gradually expanded into the 300 metre ruin that it is now, complete with a cathedral (St. German’s, to be specific) within.

After my hour in the castle, I debated – should I eat Christine’s lovely looking lunch now, or save it for the ferry ride back later and lunch on something that I wasn’t likely to get again? I spied a Manx pub and restaurant a few metres away and decided to spend the extra pounds and indulge myself on…kippers? Why not, right? The man who was standing at the bar at the same time as me laughed when I told him what I wanted and where I was from. “It’s one of our colonial neighbours,” he told the hostess, “and he wants auhr kippers!” He told me that the norm was about six of them at a sitting, but the hostess shushed him and told me that for starters two would probably be plenty. The man laughed again. “You’ll be tastin’ those auhl day, I promise yeh!” This made me understandably slightly nervous, because I didn’t know what he meant, first of all, and second of all, I didn’t even know what they tasted like at all at this point and I wasn’t sure this would be a good thing.

With some trepidation, I watched as they carried out my fish and a bowl of chips (which they actually call “wedges” I found) as well as some buttered bread and a really expensive Coca-cola (a pound twenty pence for a can of it? It’s the little things…) and was somewhat horrified at the sight of the fish staring up at me with glassy eyed. I was tempted to ask “can you possibly make sure these are dead?” but I wasn’t sure if they’d realize I was half serious. However, they didn’t turn out to be as bad as feared, just amazingly salty. For that matter, everything was amazingly salty – even down to the “tomato ketchup” that I put on the wedges. That tasted like tomatoes, salt, and vinegar.

With a fully loaded stomach (which I had the feeling I would soon regret) I re-boarded my miniature bicycle and headed back towards St. Johns. However, on a whim I turned off the Heritage path there and started heading south, towards Castletown down on the south coastline of the Island. I didn’t think I had time left to make it all the way there, but I was enjoying myself so much that I wanted to extend my cycling experience. However, half an hour later as I was climbing the mountain 3 miles down the island and feeling kippers starting to swim in my belly (I knew the bloody things weren’t dead yet) I was starting to wonder if this was such an idea. The beautiful scenery was a plus, and the constant whine of the TT motorbikes constantly humming past me (today was the first training day for the big events next week) wasn’t even so bad. I wasn’t hit at least.

As I reached the top of the last hill gasping for breath and wondering why they didn’t make any gears lower than “one” on these things, the south side of the Island unfolded around me almost panoramically and it was all worth it (not only for the beautiful view but also because I knew this meant downhill at last). And it was grand – I must have gone 3 miles without pedalling once and going at a good 40 kilometres per. However, time was tight and I realised that Castletown wasn’t going to be possible (at least not seeing the castle within the city that I was interested in), so I made an angle north from the village of Ballasalla and unfortunately was suddenly going back up hills again!

My mum had told me to stop by Santon if I could though, because there’s a Cat Sanctuary there (for all cats, not just Manx, but it’s a given that they would have some) – unfortunately when I found it, it was closed for TT racing. Blast you TT races, destroying my plans again! However, I must have had some stroke of luck because the owner happened to walk by in the yard, and upon hearing my pitiful story allowed me to come in and play with the cats for fifteen minutes or so. I met her prize Manx, an old and beautiful and amazingly friendly “rumpy” variety (which means they have no tail, versus the “stumpy” which has a little bit). Kelly purred loudly when I greeted her on her counter and put her paws on my chest, and then hopped gracefully onto my back, curled up there and started nuzzling my face. I was informed that not all Manx are this friendly, but Kelly had actually been featured in children’s shows and national television and was more or less a Manx “spokescat” for the breed. I was duly honoured to make her acquaintance.

Only a few miles left from Santon until I was back in Douglas and my journey was over. Up and down I went with the hills, wishing now that I had a road bike so I could truly dominate like the motorbikes speeding by me were. When I finally saw the now-familiar spire of the Steam Ferry dock in front of me, I was quite proud of myself: 4,000 miles from home, and I had just bicycled around almost half of the island. And that’s with my plans being flipped this way and that by the TT!

After pretty much drenching my parched self with water from Christine’s Brita, there was only a little time left to pack up the last of my things. Christine gave me a ride to the ferry station so I wouldn’t have to carry all my stuff there, and I bid her a friendly farewell there. Another wonderful English person on my trip. Any stereotypes of “English not liking Americans” should and should always be completely destroyed; even though I am totally knackered now, this trip has been amazing and every day I spend here doing new things I know I’m going to come back as soon as I can to do even more and meet more wonderful people. After all, there’s that entire island for me to see, and Snaefell, the highest point on it for me to climb, and that castle in Castletown which needs photographing!

Now the ferry is carrying the (relatively small) group of us back to Liverpool, which I really hope will arrive before the last train to Carlisle for the night. Nothing for me to do now but sit back, relax, maybe work on getting these next 300 photos off the camera, and watch the sea roil past.

*burp*

Oh…that’s what he meant by tasting those kippers for the rest of the day…