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Les Hanois from L'Eree Battery.

Walk R12.   L'Eree to Le Catioroc and back

Time: 1 hr. 10 mins.

A map of the walk can be found here.

While this is a relatively short walk, it passes a number of historical artefacts where you may wish to linger and, if you time it correctly, offers the opportunity to incorporate a circuit of Lihou Island (not included in the above timing).

Parking is in the large parking areas at L'Eree, and the bus routes are 5, 5A, 7 and 7A. For the facilities at L'Eree see walk R11.

Walk northwards along the top of the beach or along the beach itself. After the top of the slipway turn left along the road, and then follow a path left through a gap in the hedge, and around the edge of the headland. If you wish you can reach this point from the beach by scrambling up any of the rocks to the left of the slipway.

Follow the path around to the left of a broken down wire fence and through a patch of ice plants (hottentot figs). You will come to a fairly steep, but not high, section of rock leading to a little bay. If you don't fancy the direct route down the rock (which in fact has plenty of footholds provided care is taken), go back five or six paces to where a now fainter path bends right then left down to the beach. If all else fails, retrace your steps until you can access the road leading to Lihou car park.

Leave the beach at the flat grassy area and continue to follow the path around the headland, past L'Eree Battery with its two cannon, and reach the Lihou car park near the start of the causeway to Lihou Island. At the west end of the car park is a memorial to the crew of the freighter "Prosperity" who were lost when the freighter struck La Conchee reef in a winter gale in 1974 and broke up.

If you time this walk correctly you can at this point, should you wish, extend it to include a circuit of Lihou Island. Note that the Island is not accessible at all at neap tides, and the times when it is safe to cross are displayed at the causeway, published daily in the "notice board" page of the Guernsey Evening Press, broadcast by Radio Guernsey, and available from the States of Guernsey website. Do not attempt to cross at any other time, as the currents are treacherous here. At spring tides the total rise and fall of our tides can be as much as 9 or more metres (30 feet), and the fastest movement of the sea is at half tide.

The main things of interest on Lihou, apart from the walk across the causeway itself (which can be a bit wet in places incidentally), are the partially excavated remains of the Priory of St Mary and, in spring/early summer, the profusion of sea pinks and gulls nests. I would allow an hour for your visit (and of course you must still return during the causeway open times), though the circuit of the island and return can be done in less.

Whether you visit Lihou or not, the walk now leaves the car park along the road, and at the fork goes left. Before doing this you may like to note that a path can be taken to the foot of the German tower, although the tower itself is on private property. Also, near the top of the right fork in the road you can find Le Creux es Faies prehistoric passage grave. There is an information board, and you can enter the small structure.

From the left fork, continue down the road to reach a parking area and the start of L'Eree shingle bank. If you would prefer to have negotiated a rocky shoreline to get to this point from the Lihou car park, rather than the road, you can find a wide flat grassy path leading north from near the end of the causeway. This soon finishes at a headland, then you have to clamber the rest of the way along the rocky beach (past a frog-like face on a rock which someone has outlined in white paint), since this part of the actual headland is private. Alternatively there is a path just before you get to the headland which heads up right towards the German tower, then eventually gets back to the road junction near Le Creux es Faies.

At the shingle bank, please keep to the path as requested. If it annoys you to walk along the path with your seaward views obstructed by the shingle bank (though in truth it's not for long) you would need to walk down the slipway from the parking area, and walk along the pebbly beach well away from the top. If you do this you should not leave the beach until you get to the granite wall or, a bit further on after the stream outlet, at the slipway.

The good path to the right of the shingle bank finishes, and you continue along a pavement alongside the sea wall. After you get to the slipway at a bend, it's best to cross over onto the grassy verge on the right of the road. (Note that part of this has recently been re-grassed, and a "private property" notice erected, but there is still a track which can be walked along). This verge reaches a low granite wall, and you have no alternative to the road for a few paces. However just ahead you can see the signpost pointing to Le Trepied passage grave and Mont Chinchon Battery on Le Catioroc headland (35 minutes).

The sign proves to be situated just where a footpath starts along the right of the road, and just before a sharp right hand bend. However take the path ascending on the right as signed, and almost immediately pass the recently restored Mont Chinchon Battery, with its two cannon, and almost opposite on the right Le Trepied passage grave (not so elaborate as the one at Le Creux es Faies).

From here keep straight on up the path, which runs between hedges, initially mainly of bramble and blackthorn, and then passes a number of pine trees. After a while this path widens, and then becomes a metalled lane (Chemin Le Roi).

Towards the end of the lane ignore the road going back right, and then at the crossroads turn right (Rue du Felconte). The road rises, and after a while the views down to Perelle reappear on your right. Just after the road starts to descend turn back sharp left (Ruette du Felconte - also shown as Rue du Felconte in my edition of Perry's; not named at all in the fold-out version). After a few paces you can see across to Pleinmont, Les Hanois, and back to Lihou.

After a further couple of hundred metres or so, and just before the road bends right by some more pine trees, take the grassy lane on the right with the highish ivy covered hedges (Ruette Thomas Henry). Take care when this lane emerges quite suddenly onto a main road at a rather blind exit.

At this road turn right, then almost immediately left into Rue Rocheuse. Follow this down to the coast then turn right to regain the car parking and bus stop. (1 hr. 10 mins.)

A circular panorama looking across to Lihou Island can be accessed from this link.

(Revised May 2011)