Hello there, historical walking person. Most likely you've arrived here for two reasons. One, you're a church organist looking for the chords to Jerusalem, or two, you've been persuaded and cajoled by my book And Did Those Feet: Walking Through 2000 Years of British and Irish History to find out more about the routes I took.
Ramsey - Crosby - Castletown
Ordance Survey Landranger map: 95
In mileage terms this was one of the less taxing walks; however it does involve a lot of climbing, something I'd not really had to deal with on the previous two. It's around twenty-five miles from Ramsey in the north of the island to Castletown in the south. It's doable in a day if you're an experienced walker, but I chose to do it in two. Which was still hard work, but then I had chosen to do it in January. Sane people do it in the summer.
This route is actually a 'proper' waymarked trail called The Millennium Way.
I stayed in a wonderful guesthouse tucked away at the end of a lane in Ramsey called The River House. Alas I didn't get the chance to see it in daylight, but it's a lovely place to stay.
From Crosby, just over halfway, I caught the bus up to St John's, the ancient site of the Manx parliament the Tynwald, and then up to the Glen Helen Inn, a curious but comfy hotel that appears to be in the middle of nowhere, but again I only saw it under cover of darkness.
At the end of the walk I was relieved to fall into the George Hotel in the gorgeous little town of Castletown, in full view of the castle on the site of Olaf's own residence of a millennium earlier.
A challenging walk in lots of ways, this one, but again, early January probably wasn't the best time of year to do it.
