Day 5: Alderney to home via Guernsey

We slept well in our hotel on Alderney last night after the 30 000 + steps we'd walked yesterday! The advantage of staying in a hotel is having breakfast included and we were pleasantly surprised when we went downstairs in this hotel to find that there was a really nice breakfast menu. We both ended up having pancakes with bacon, which was an exceptionally good start to the day  

Our flight from Alderney back to Guernsey wasn't until 12.10 - and Alderney airport didn't seem like the sort of place we needed to be two hours before our flights - so we decided to take a scenic route from the hotel to the airport, walking around part of the cliff-top path that we'd not managed to do yesterday.

We packed up our things and set off, walking downhill from the town of St Anne towards Braye where we'd had dinner last night.

We had some beautiful views of the sea as we picked up the coastal path again.

We also passed quite a few different castle and forts.

Some of them were on land and some of them were out at sea.

There were also some lovely sandy beaches...

...and some rockier ones.

We passed an extremely windswept tree...

...before the path left the coast behind and we began to climb uphill towards the airport.

This is definitely one of the more scenic walks to an airport I've ever done!

Before too long the airport came into view.

It's a really tiny airport, not much more than a prefab.

We queued to check in, then queued again to go through security. Alderney airport doesn't seem to have any scanning technology, so security consisted of someone opening our bags and having a quick rifle through them. Then we transferred into a small prefab to watch the flight safety video and before we knew it we were boarding the tiny plane and about to take off.

Tim and I were sitting in row 9 this time, which was the back of the plane. We had some more incredible views of the other Channel Islands as made the short journey back to Guernsey. After we landed, we realised that our 12.10 flight (which was due to get to Guernsey at 12.30), had actually landed at 12.04  

I think that's the first time I've ever been on a flight that arrived before it was due to depart   They're obviously quite flexible with the flight times from Alderney, with the plane taking off once all the passengers are there!

I'd booked us into a pub about 10 minutes walk away from the airport, so we headed there to have lunch at 1pm. Our flight from Guernsey back to Birmingham is due to depart at 17.35, but we've just heard that there are air traffic control problems in the UK, so we're not sure to what extent we're going to be delayed.

Whatever happens, we've had an amazing long weekend in the Channel Islands and have really enjoyed our trip to Alderney in particular