< Rocquaine Bay from the car park>

Rocquaine Bay from the car park.

Walk R11. Portelet to L'Eree and back

Time: 1 hr. 45 mins.

A map of the walk can be found here.

This walk follows the coast from Portelet as far as L'Eree beach, then heads inland to return through pleasant lanes and paths. Parking and bus routes are as for walk R10. Note that if the sea is rough, spray may come over the sea wall at high tides part way between Fort Grey and L'Eree.

On leaving the car park it's better - providing the tide is low - to walk initially along the beach to avoid the main coast road. There are some steepish steps down to the beach opposite the Imperial Hotel, or walk a little further along the road and down the slipway. If it's high tide there is no alternative to the road, though for part of the way there is an off-road parking lay-by to walk along.

When you get to the causeway at Fort Grey (more commonly known as the "Cup and Saucer") you will need to move to the road anyway, as the beach beyond the fort does not make good walking. Continue along the road with Guernsey Pearl and café on your right, and after a couple of hundred metres a grassy verge develops on the seaward side. Follow the path over the first concrete bunker and around the others, then you will have to rejoin the road for a few paces.

At this point you can if you wish go down the slipway and continue along the beach, which by now is good walking again, provided the tide is not too high. If you do then the next slipway you will come to is the one mentioned in the next paragraph.

Otherwise continue for a further few paces along the road until another verge develops. This also ends, at which point you can cross over and continue on a rough path on the landward side of the road. At the end of this path there is another 50 metres or so of road, then you can go through a gap in the sea wall back on to the beach. Walk up the slipway, and you will find it has a second branch descending to the south end of L'Eree beach (40 minutes). In season this is a very popular beach for sunbathers and swimmers, though swimming is best done when the tide is high.

If you leave the beach at the first flight of steps after the slipway you will find yourself almost opposite Le Marais (next paragraph but one). Otherwise walk as far as you wish along the beach. The next steps come up where there is almost always a mobile refreshment kiosk, and the next after that where there are public toilets.

Apart from the mobile refreshment kiosk, the facilities here are (from right to left) L'Eree Bay Hotel, Les Sablons Tea Garden, La Plage Café, Restaurant and Take-away, and The Taste of India Restaurant.

Assuming you've walked at least part of the way along L'Eree beach, then walk back along the raised way above the top of the beach in the direction of Portelet, and then along the road-side verge, until you get to some small granite blocks and then the end of the verge. Turn left into the road opposite - Le Marais (if it's Rue Rocheuse you need to retrace your steps just a bit further back towards Portelet).

After a right hand bend, keep right at a fork. At a cross roads continue straight on (slightly right of straight - Rue des Vicheries). After a few minutes you will pass on your right, the orchid fields maintained by La Societe Guernesiaise. In the early summer the edges of three or so of these fields are mown so that visitors can walk around to view the orchids, the only place in Guernsey where wild orchids grow in such profusion.

Beyond the fields you will come to an information board about the orchid fields at a road junction (where there is also an electricity sub-station). Keep straight on (where the tarmac road turns left) along the green track between hedges that you can see straight ahead (Ruette du Burgel). This rises up to reach a road, where we turn right uphill (Rue du Catillon).

Keep straight along, ignoring a right fork which is a private drive, and again ignoring a sharp turn back to the left uphill, after which the road starts descending gently. After this ignore a right turn, continuing along the road half left (La Lichoterie). You reach a main road (and bus route) at a T junction. Turn right down the road (Route du Coudre). Ignore a right turn, and 50 metres or so after this turn left onto a track running uphill between two houses that are side on to the road. (The left hand house is Frisco Cottage). This track shows signs of having been metalled once, but is now starting to run to grass.

After the track flattens out it turns sharp left. After the bend keep straight on up (Rocque au Caulx), ignoring a path going off on the right. Backward views open out over to Pleinmont and Les Hanois. Reach a metalled lane at a corner and turn right downhill (Rue du Campere). After a bend this reaches a T junction. Turn left then almost immediately right up the hill ("Unsuitable for heavy vehicles").

Ignore a road coming up from the left. After left and right bends in the road, take the short grassy lane on the right then turn right down the road (Rue du Gains). (Note that Perry's shows the grassy lane as a road, and the top of Rue du Gains as a green lane). Continue along the tarmac Rue du Gains, ignoring a green lane going off on the right at a bend, and go straight across at a cross roads (into Rue de la Vallee).

Reach a main road at a T junction, and turn right to regain the car park and bus stop (1 hr. 45 mins).

(Revised October 2009)