The Isle of Wight by bus

Ventnor has one of the few sand beaches in England. In the shops on Pier Street and High Street you can see postcards of the beach filled with swimmers on a bright sunny day. Reality is different. On the day I was there it was about eight degrees at the end of a non-existent English spring.

Ventnor is on the southern tip of the Isle of Wight. Its streets are engraved into a steep hill overlooking the cold English Channel. The colour of the sea could only be found on a paint colour chart – – an opaque pastel blend of grey and green.

I spent one hour and eight minutes in Ventnor. How can I be so precise? Because it tells me so on Page 40 of one of the most remarkable documents in the history of British cryptography – – the Isle of Wight Bus Guide.

Before that bleak spring day, I used to think that the longest distance between any two points was an ACTION bus route in Canberra. Not so. ACTION’s guide and bus routes are a quick crossword compared to The Times’s cryptic that is the Isle of Wight Bus Guide. The guide is an astonishing 96 pages (each 10cm by 20 cm) for an island a little larger than the city of Canberra (50km by 30km) and a population of just 130,000.

I had two “must sees” on the Isle of Wight – – the Needles, spectacular chalk spikes remanat from eroding white cliffs, and Osborne House which was Queen Victoria’s retreat. (I have seen enough Roman ruins for now.)

The hovercraft from Portsmouth arrived at Ryde on the Isle of Wight’s north coast at 8.15am. I mapped my way through the 96-page guide, turning from the Purple Route to the Blue Route and then the Brown Route. The guide was sprinkled and jumbled with a seemingly malicious array of exceptions — Sundays, bank holidays and schooldays and different times for different seasons. Route 7, 7A and 7B seemed to be a good starting point. That was the Blue Route. Astonishingly, it was serviced by light blue buses. But I later found that the Purple Route was serviced by not purple buses, but by dark blue buses.

Anyway, I got on and went to the front of the top deck. I got the close-up view as the bus wielded its way through the narrow streets of Ryde. The corners of houses loomed perilously close to the window before the bus swerved at the last second like some crazy roller coaster ride. Worse, the bus seemed to be heading east. The Needles were west. Never mind. I got some terrific views over the coast before the bus deposited me at Ventnor at 9.17am. I had not intended to get out, but I had mistaken some shading on the timetable and I found that the bus terminated in Ventnor. The driver told me the next bus heading west towards Alum Bay and the Needles would arrive at 10.25. It did, and I found myself on the top deck chatting to a woman who had been 57 years on the island. She had married an islander and now in widowhood remained.

“Would the bus stop at Alum Bay take a me to within walking distance of the Needles?” I asked.

The island woman thought for a moment. “I don’t know about that,” she said. “I haven’t been up that way. You know how it is? I just stick to my shopping and getting the weekly lottery ticket.”

Another man who had lived on the island for 10 years as a quantity engineer told me that he had never been to Osborne House.

“They say it’s nice,” he said, burying his head in the tabloid Sun.

Clearly, I had my priorities wrong. I should have gone to Osborne House first.

Later, a very smug Dutchman, who visited the Isle of Wight every year, confirmed it.

“You should haf gone to ze Osborne House first, taking a Number 4 and then gone on ze Red Route to Newport and through to ze Needles. You vood haf been zere by now.”

He was right, of course. And he showed me. It was all on Pages 14, 34 and 62 – – except on bank holidays when it would have been on Pages 16, 35 and 63.

I’m serious. And it gets worse. They even charge you for this guide – – the equivalent of $A1.20.

I am going to send my copy to ACTION as a revenue-raising idea. They need the money.

The astonishing thing is that like the cryptic crossword, there is a solution if you are patient enough. But, like the cryptic crossword, you are doomed if you get just one clue wrong, for it will lead to the wrong path for the next clue and the next and the next.

Ultimately, the smug Dutchman – – though technically correct – – was wrong. The best way to go was first the 7B Blue Route stopping in Ventnor, followed by the Brown Route (which is serviced by an ORANGE open-air double-decker so you can see the Needles), followed by the Purple Route to East Cowes (don’t go to Cowes itself as it is on the other side of the river from what you want). On that day at least.

When I arrived at it the Needles a 60 kmh silent wind forced its way over the clifftops and across the grass. The wind, though hellishly strong, was silent because there were no trees, bushes or buildings for it to whistle through – – just grass. It almost a blew me over, but more importantly it blew every cloud out of the sky, yielding a splendid sunlit view of the Needles.

By the time I got to Osborne House I had just enough time to get inside when the rain hit – – great wafting sheets of grey horizontal water. Whereas, if I had followed the Dutchman’s route that rain would have hit while I was outside, at the Needles.

Osborne House is a marvel. The building is well-proportioned, but inside it represents late Victorian England at its overstated, hideous best — imitation Greek statues, copied Rococo ceilings, imitated Renaissance frescoes, copied continental European gardens and transplanted Indian walls and floors. In the unauthentic derivative jumble, Osborne House marks the certainty of a great, possessive Empire.

Queen Victoria died here and her son, Edward VII (who had more taste than his mum) gave the house and grounds to the nation.

Having finished the self-guided tour, I strode out into the rain at 4.35pm for the seven minute walk through the grounds where I was by now fully confident that a dark blue bus would pull up at the gates on at the Purple Route at 4.42pm. It did.

One across, one down, three across, two down, and one across. I had covered the island and was back at the hovercraft to take me back to Portsmouth on the mainland.