Tennyson Down & The Needles
What we did
Olivia's Day Two — another shanty for the island downs.
We climbed the hot and winding path up Tennyson's high down,
The views spread wide o'er sea and shore for miles beyond the town.So up and down the island downs we roam,
Sing hey for the Wight — we're a long way from home!A baby cactus by the way, a tower crowning all,
We drank the breeze then turned about to answer the bus's call.It bore us on to see the Needles, chalk stacks white and grand,
We browsed the shop of rainbow jars all filled with coloured sand.So up and down the island downs we roam,
Sing hey for the Wight — we're a long way from home!We rode the chair lift down the cliff, I sat with Lily near,
Then puffed back up a hill so steep it near stole all our cheer.And back at port a teller spun his tales by lantern-light,
Of devils, mermaids, smuggling men who signalled through the night.So up and down the island downs we roam,
Sing hey for the Wight — we're a long way from home!
Photos
A down named after a poet — and cliffs of 21 colours
That tall tower at the top isn't just any monument — Tennyson Down is named after Alfred, Lord Tennyson, one of Britain's most famous poets, who lived nearby and walked here almost every day. He loved the fresh sea air so much he said it was "worth sixpence a pint." The granite cross at the summit was raised in his memory in 1897. And the coloured sand in that shop is real: the cliffs at nearby Alum Bay hold up to 21 natural shades of sand, tinted by different minerals in the rock — which is why people fill little glass ornaments with the rainbow layers.