< Fort Hommet, Vazon and La Grande Mare>

Fort Hommet, Vazon and La Grande Mare.

Walk R14.   Vazon to Cobo and back

Time: 2 hours.

A map of the walk can be found here.

This walk includes some of the best of our west coast, before heading back inland past the viewpoint at Le Guet and the nature trail at St Germain.

If you want to continue from where walk 12 left the coast then park close to Richmond Kiosk, where there are also public toilets (open in season). However there are parking areas most of the way from here extending northwards along Vazon Bay. Bus routes to Richmond are 7 or 7A, or you can take routes 3 or 3A to Vazon Bay Café and start from there.

Leave Richmond Kiosk along the grassy verge on the seaward side of the coast road. Continue up and over a bunker and along a raised walk way. Vazon is our most popular surfing beach and on most days of the year, so long as there is even a suspicion of surf, you will probably see surfers out on the sea. After a while you pass La Grande Mare Golf and Country Club on your right.

Note that on high tides when the sea is rough, waves may be breaking over the sea wall. Except in winter gales, you should be able to avoid the spray by crossing over to the landward side of the road. If not, there is a way through the car park of La Grande Mare and along the track that runs down the right hand side of the driving range to exit at the gate into La Rocquette where you can turn left to regain the coast. Strictly speaking this is over private property, but the restaurant and other facilities here are open to non-members.

Pass Martello Tower number 12 then a WW II German bunker, and reach Vazon Bay Café (currently - April 2012 - closed for renovations) at a car park and bus stop, where there are also public toilets. Across the road opposite is Crabby Jacks Bar and Bistro.

At this point you can if you wish cut the corner and continue along the coast road. However we are going to do the very worthwhile circuit of the Fort Hommet headland, so continue along the sea wall. When you reach another rough parking area just before another German bunker, cross it to find the good path bending around up steps to the top of the bunker (there is no need to go up the steep muddy path at half left). Continue along the path as it contours around the headland with views back over Vazon.

Before you reach the Fort bear right to pick up the path heading around and back along the other side of the headland. (Optionally visit the Fort first, which is not included in my timings). From this path you get views across to Cobo and Grandes Rocques, and to Grosse Rocque in the middle of the bay. The flag there has been kept flying each year since the 1945 liberation by a local fisherman.

The path contours around the west side of Albecq. Just after the little copse of pine trees are the excavated remains of an early medieval settlement. As I write this the writing on the information board has unfortunately weathered away. Continue along to reach the main road where we bear left along the good pavement. Towards the top of the hill, where the road enters a little cutting, you can make a short diversion up steps on the right to visit Burton Battery. As you emerge from the cutting Cobo bay appears ahead, with Grandes Rocques beyond. Just down on the left you may be able to spot a "baboon and camel" rock, though you don't have to walk far beyond the cutting for the shapes to disappear.

Continue along the path. As you approach Cobo you can see the vertical face of the old Guet quarry on your right with the viewing platform at Le Guet watch house above. (45 mins).  Just before you get to the tarmac car park, cross the road and go up the steps on the right of the granite hut. Just beyond the car park itself are a refreshment kiosk (open in season) and public toilets.

At the top of the small number of steps turn right (signed on a granite block: footpath to Le Guet viewpoint). Ignore a turn off on the right, and continue up (fairly pathless) towards the left of the buildings. If you find this too steep just continue around further to the left to find a gentler way up. Go through the two gateways (the second of these is quite low so mind your head - especially on the way out afterwards) and walk through to the viewing platform to get good views over Cobo, Grandes Rocques and beyond.

Leave the watch house heading away from the coast and pick up a metalled lane. Turn left at a junction, walking past Castel Rectory and St Matthew's Church. Immediately after you pass a left hand turning (La Ruette de Frocq - don't go down it) turn right down a footpath. After this runs down the right hand side of a field it reaches a road (Route du Tetre) where we turn right.

Ignore a couple of estate roads on the left then, about 75 metres after the concealed exit and speed limit sign, turn left at a cross roads into Les Querites. Keep straight up the lane with the notice about school traffic delays, then at a fork bend left along Rue de St Germain. After the high granite wall you reach a parking area.

St Germain used to be a granite quarry, but many years of land fill have transformed it from a hole into a hill, which has now been landscaped to construct a nature trail. Leave the car park along the path running slightly uphill on the left, and when you get to the top turn right onto the grass. Cross the wide grassy area (pathless, but head towards the pine trees at the far end) with views down to the Hommet headland on your right.

Drop down to a little pond where you turn left along the path. At a T junction by a hedge turn right, then after a few paces turn left downhill (Rue de la Petite Hougue) to reach a metalled road where we turn left (Rue de la Hougue).

Keep straight along until you reach a main road (La Hougette Road), where we keep straight across to enter a narrow metalled way (La Bissonerie), which soon becomes a footpath. When this reaches the next road turn right, then almost immediately right again into Rue des Belles.

Pass Pamela Dorey's Studio, then after a further bend turn left at a T junction (Rue des Bergers). After you pass some fields and then a left hand bend turn right in front of the bungalow facing you ("Beulah" - Sous Les Jardins). After 100 metres, at a sharp left bend, turn right (not straight on) down the path. (La Longue Rue - this path gets very muddy after rain).

Note that this path runs through La Grande Mare golf course, and alongside two of the fairways (which are hidden from the path by bushes and shrubs). The possibility (hopefully fairly remote) therefore exits of being struck by a miss-hit golf ball. If this worries you, or if the path looks too muddy, just carry on left along the metalled lane up to the main road, turning right to follow the road around back to the coast not far from where the footpath comes out (Les Grandes Moulins (Kings Mills Road) and Le Gele Road).

Otherwise carry on down the footpath, which becomes a track as it passes through the golf course, to arrive at the coast road, where you turn left or right depending on where your car or your bus stop is. (2 hours).