Anne-Marie’s Jersey Coastal Path Adventure
By Anne-Marie Wilson
Those of you who have read my blogs for the last couple of years will know that I am a big fan of staying dry and being warm. Having completed the West Highland Way in 2023 (where it is safe to say I got a bit wet) and the Cotswold Way in 2024, I was absolutely delighted to be invited to go even further south in 2025 to walk the Jersey Coastal Path.
In late 2024 we introduced the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey to our walking holiday portfolio so I jumped at the chance to go to the bigger of the two islands to experience what our customers experience and to meet some of our wonderful accommodation hosts and transport providers along the way.
Jersey is the largest of the Channel Islands, it sits in the Bay of St Malo, located off the North-Western coast of France. It is 14 miles (23 km) from France and 85 miles (137km) from mainland Britain. The population of Jersey is approximately 105,000 people.
My Mother in Law, Joan was joining me again this year so we drove from Keswick to Manchester Airport in the pouring rain, content in the knowledge that the weather forecast for the week was set warm and dry and bravely or stupidly (I don’t know yet), I hadn’t even packed any waterproof trousers!
Again, those of you who are regular readers of our blogs will know that previously I have walked with my school friend Sarah, who comes over from Uganda to keep me company. This year I have swapped the lovely Sarah for another one of my gorgeous friends, Kirsty. Kirsty and I met at university in 1992 and it is a pleasure to have her join me on the Jersey Coastal Path.
We arrived in Jersey and jumped on a bus right outside the small terminal building to the largest town on the Island and the start point for our walk, St Helier. On the drive there we sat at the front on the top deck and I was particularly struck by the big mixture of architectural styles in the houses, from traditional farmhouses and cottages to very grand and more modern designs. All the properties were detached and sat in their own plot of land with beautiful gardens and towering agapanthus plants, I was also struck by the lack of high rise buildings.
My first impressions were that this was going to be lovely place to spend a week of wandering. Read on to find out how we got on.
Day One: St Helier to La Corbiere
The start point for our walk was Liberation Square in St Helier. Liberation Square was developed in 1995 to mark the 50th anniversary of Jersey’s liberation. The Channel Islands were the only part of the British Isles to be occupied by German forces in World War 2 and there is evidence of this occupation everywhere you look. The five-year occupation came to an end on 9 May 1945 which is now known as Liberation Day. Our hotel in St Helier was called the Pomme d’Or and its balcony, overlooking Liberation Square was the focal point for celebrations when British Forces liberated the Island.
We started our morning walking into a very strong wind around St Aubin’s Bay. A bay flanked by Elizabeth Castle to the East and St Aubin’s fort to the West. Wonderful, brightly painted amphibious vehicles take you across to Elizabeth Castle in high tide. The promenade was clean and well looked after with many public toilets along the route. I was also delighted to see what they call ‘Borrow a Bucket’ Boxes – where people can borrow buckets and spades, body boards and parasols. I thought that was a lovely and thoughtful initiative.
We stopped for lunch at St Brelade’s Bay and watched groups of children who we think were on holiday camp, sand yachting, learning to waterski and playing beach volley ball. Kirsty and I sat on the prom and ate our lunch and were amazed by how few people there were on the huge, sandy beach.
After lunch we continued off towards Corbiere and proceeded around the headland. Here we saw some amazing WW2 gun ramparts and bunkers. German forces spent an immense amount of time building these huge concrete structures which extend deep into the granite rock and still stand firm to this day.
We finished our day with a chilly but delightful swim in the sea, followed by delicious moules frites on the terrace of our wonderful hotel, The Biarritz. Rose and her team did a great job of looking after us and making us feel at home.
Day Two: La Corbiere to Greve de Lecq
The first two hours of our day were spent walking the entire length (5 miles/8 km), of Saint Ouen’s Bay into a very strong Northerly wind.
Dotted along the bay were more concrete bunkers and turrets. We stopped at The Channel Islands Military Museum where a very helpful chap told us that there are over 500 bunkers and turrets dotted along the Jersey coast. He told us that anything built in concrete was built by the Germans to protect their occupation of the island from the British and their allies and that anything built in granite was built by the British to protect the Island from the French. He also told us that the high stone walls that are assumed to be protection from the sea were actually anti-tank walls built to stop the invasion of the island by tank.
At the northernmost point of the bay there was an incredible fish restaurant where the day’s catch was cooked fresh and sold. Unfortunately, the restaurant was not yet open when we arrived so we bought a little pot of prawns and used the toilet. This toilet stop proved to be the highlight of the morning as I managed to get myself locked in and Kirsty had to get the fisherman to come and help me get out. Subsequently, I realised that I had used the lock that very clearly said ‘DO NOT USE’ in bright red tape. Oops!
The second part of the day was spent wandering along the cliff top through Les Landes, a Site of Specific Scientific Interest and Jersey’s largest maritime heath. There was very little vegetation and virtually no land based wildlife. We did however spot a variety of birds such as Sparrowhawks and Buzzards and we could hear a meadow pipit, whose most common call is a series of short, rising notes that sound like ‘sip-it or pip-it’.
We enjoyed a few moments at the ruins of Grosnez Castle which was built in the 14th century as a refuge for local farmers to protect them from French attacks. Grosnez is roughly translated as big nose which made us giggle as my nickname is “Pidge” largely due to the shape of my nose which some of my kind friends at school thought resembled that of a pigeon.
The heath is also home to Jersey’s racecourse, the most Southerly racecourse in the British Isles which dates back to 1832. The racecourse grandstand has breath-taking views of the Grosnez Castle ruins and the other Channel Islands of Guernsey, Herm, Sark and Alderney.
We ate lunch at the only café on the entire length of this section at Pleinmont Bay. I had the best brie and bacon ciabatta that I have ever eaten in my whole life. It was expensive but worth every penny. We climbed up a very steep staircase out of the bay and were rewarded when we reached the top by a fabulous puffin statue perched on the headland.
The final 5k of the day was up and down through dense gorse and ferns with bracken growing to way above our heads. It was hot and damp in the woodlands which was a sharp contrast to the arid heath and the windy beach from earlier in the day. It was a relief to get to the lovely bay at Greve de Lecq for a swim in the sea.
Day Three: Greve de Lecq to Rozel
Today was our longest day (15 miles/24 km) so we prepared ourselves with an enormous and very delicious breakfast provided by Lukasz and his team at The Price of Wales Hotel. Lukasz is from Poland but he has lived on Jersey for 14 years. He was a very pleasant and highly entertaining host who was ‘happy’ to accommodate our many demands for extra croissants and more and more iced water (for our water bottles).
We left the hotel and started our walk which would take us across almost the entire width of the North coast of the island. Unlike the previous two days where we had walked through varied terrain, today’s walk was entirely on the northern rocky cliff path. For what today lacked in variation of terrain, it certainly made up for in elevation and descent. We literally climbed and descended thousands of steps as we made our way along the trail.
Our first point of interest in the day was a tourist attraction called The Devil’s Hole. Formerly called ‘Le Creux de Vis’ or ‘Spiral Cave’ it was invented in the 19th Century to attract visitors. A ship’s figurehead was once washed up here, it was modified with horns and erected as an attraction, hence the name change to the Devil’s Hole. The area has a man-made viewing platform, allowing visitors to experience the wildness of the northern coast, a pub and a huge devil statue standing in a pond! Surely a sight not to be missed!
A highlight of the day for me were the hundreds of beautiful butterflies that accompanied us for the majority of the walk.
Towards the end of the afternoon when we were beginning to flag Kirsty put some rock tunes on her iPhone. She has a rock choir gig at the weekend so we decided to have a little practice and started belting out the likes of the Foo Fighters, Blondie and Wham. Again those of you familiar with my blogs will know that last year I was imagining that I was Julie Andrews and singing show tunes to myself, this year I would definitely have been a match for Debbie Harry at Glastonbury.
Suddenly Kirsty stopped dead in her tracks and told me to stop screeching as she could hear an interesting bird calling. By using an app called ‘Merlin Bird ID’ it turned out to be a Peregrine Falcon. The falcon was sat on a rocky outcrop entertaining us with its own screeching (it was quite difficult to differentiate between the falcon and myself). It was too far away to see if it was a juvenile or an adult bird but it was a fantastic end to a hard day. You can hear it too on our daily video blog.
We limped into Rozel Bay and headed straight to the pub, we felt that we needed a drink more than we needed a swim. With sore feet and aching thighs, we thoroughly enjoyed our sundowner. This section of the coastal path is not for the faint hearted with vertiginous drops and 2,798 ft/853 m of elevation. I would recommend that anyone who is not a great stair climber considers the slightly shorter version of the north coast walk that can be found on the JC6 itinerary.
Day Four: Rozel to St Helier
We left the Chateau la Chaire after a wonderful full English breakfast and soon came across a man called Tony standing very still in the middle of the road, looking at the drystone wall. Tony was trying to coax a couple of female asian hornets to feed from his wick bait station. Once they have fed, they will return to their nest and Tony and his team track them to find the location of the nest. He told us that when they find the nests they remove them and put them in a deep freeze and then they cut the nests open to analyse them. They have caught 1300 hornets this year on Jersey alone. We asked him why they need to do this and he explained that asian hornets attack beehives and can do so in large numbers. They are an invasive species that is spreading across Europe at an alarming rate, attacking our pollinators and leading to their extinction.
We left Tony and continued on our way towards St Helier. The wind that had been our air conditioning for the previous days had dropped and it was very hot. After punishing our weary legs climbing out of Rozel Bay we then followed a road that zig zagged downhill passing a very interesting old building that had been restored as a beautiful home and garden.
We stopped for lunch in another little beach café and whilst eating we realised that we had not seen a petrol station, a convenience store or a cashpoint machine since leaving St Aubin on day one. What a pleasure it had been to be so far removed from the hustle and bustle of everyday life and convenience.
The afternoon passed in a blur of gorgeous, sheltered, white sand beaches that were simply idyllic. We reached a small bay at Archirondel and the pull of the calm, blue water was too much so we popped in for a dip.
As we headed closer and closer to St Helier my thoughts moved towards the fact that our walk was nearly over. If you are reading this blog and considering walking it yourself then these are my thoughts.
It is an absolute delight. A predominantly easy (see notes on day three), pleasant and beautiful walk with fantastic views and (usually) very lovely weather.
The guide book is a bit tricky in parts, mainly because the coast path walk is made up of 16 circular walks all linked together. Take some time to understand how the guidebook works before setting off but remember that if the sea is on your left hand side and you are as close to it as possible then you can’t be far wrong.
The people of Jersey are very kind, welcoming and friendly and are very happy to shower you with the greatest hospitality. We learnt that born and bred Jersey men and women are sometimes called ‘Jersey Beans’ because of Jersey Bean Crock, a traditional stew or casserole made with beans. While some may find the term derogatory, ‘Jersey Bean’ is a common and often affectionate nickname for people from the island but sometimes it may not be acceptable for visitors to use it.
We spent our last night at The Ommaroo Hotel in St Helier. Situated directly opposite the beach and lido swimming pool, the hotel offers spectacular sea views. Ionela very kindly gave us an incredible sea view balcony room and it was very special to spend our last night and final morning staring out over the sea to the horizon from our beds and also from our shower! Watch our daily video blog to see the tidal waves rolling over the wall into the lido. It really was a special and stunning sight.
Our final treat was the rising of the July full moon, known as ‘The Buck Moon’ over the water. Words are hard to describe how fabulous it was and it was a perfect end to what had been a truly fabulous trip.
We offer two itineraries on the Jersey Coastal Path making a clockwise circuit over four or five days beginning and ending in the island’s capital, St Helier. To learn more about this stunning walk, simply email us at [email protected] or call us on 017687 72335 to speak with one of our walking holiday experts.