Wednesday 24 May 2017

Genny in the Orchids


Yesterday I visited a beautiful area north of St Ouen's Pond looking at wild orchids

This area is part of a wider wetland area designated as an SSI (site of special interest) and owned and managed by the National Trust for Jersey. I have not been able to visit this site for about 8 years and yesterdays visit was a walk down memory lane

In 1990 I worked for the NT as the first ever countryside ranger in Jersey and managing these areas was my favourite job. It was great to see how the area had changed in the intervening 20+ years. The orchids you can see on either side of the path form a riot of colour every year in May and have increased in abundance through the conservation management I helped to instigate. Where these plants were restricted to a core area with only odd blooms in other parts of the site, the orchids are now spread around the northern perimeter of the pond in an area historically too wet to farm and previously overgrown by the reeds seen in the right of the photo

What a joy to explore these areas again. Tomorrow I will attempt to access the southern side of the site

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So I didn't make the southern side - it was behind a gate, a "Do Not Enter" sign and being grazed by a herd of cows. I gave it a miss and instead slipping across the road and onto the adjacent beach and did a long run across the sands. I have always wanted to travel the length of this bay, its number 1 on my tick list for Genny but I may start with a bus to the far end
  
I crossed about 3 miles of beach avoiding the odd soft sandy patches that labour Genny. I watched the battery indicator drop throughout this journey uncertain of how far I would make. At any point I could have called a taxi or begged a lift but having never actually run Genny completely out of juice I persisted

From where I was in the picture above I continued a further 3 or 4 miles to my home, then messed around till completely flattening the batteries. Genny died 3 meters from my door after a lot of bleeping and flashing of lights on the display. slumping forward onto the footrest it was easy to dismount in a controlled manor

I have seen in the Genny manual that it suggests running batteries out completely if there are issues with the battery level indicator so I was keen to see the outcome. I have since drawn and measured the route I took and have determined it to be 25.5 miles (41 km), not accounting for the vertical element - impressive eh?