Isle of Man TT 2016 : Day 3

Another well rested and early start this morning and I meet up with the guys at a local pub for a bit of a breakfast fry up…

It’s hard to recommend places on your first visit, simply because you have been to so few but that won’t change the fact that if a place is good – it’s good, and this places was. A nice breakfast down the hatch and it was time to make a move.

The guys I was with were keen to hit the Mountain Road again and get some fast miles under their belt, I however decided to go off the path less travelled and explore the Island a little more.

(There is a path much less travelled element to the ISle of MAn, with hundreds of miles of green lanes all over, and you will see lots of guys on scramblers and enduros coming off the countryside. The path I travelled wasn’t their path although to be fair they looked like they were having an absolutely outstanding adventure!)

A quick Google the previous evening had led to 2 potential points of interest for the day, the first was heading South to the Islands most Southernly point and a look at the Calf of Man. The second being the Motor Museum.

So the view south looked pretty epic, something strange was sitting over the mountain, I hadn’t seen one in a couple of days but it’s OK, it was just a cloud.

The island is small so navigation isn’t a problem, point and go works well and obviously the Isle of Man wants their tourists to have a frustration free visit so all the land marks and villages are well signposted and easily found.

Just keep your eyes peeled for little photo stops, they are everwhere…

The south of the island was the next stop – The Calf of Man just sitting to her south west. For your pub quiz knowledge the stretch of water seperating the main Island from the Calf of Man is called the Calf Sound.

From here there are a few easy paths that are worth exploring, they will lead you to some rugged coastline views and information points that show the varied history the Island has…

After a a walkabout and some refreshments it was time to move on and the next port of call was the Isle of Man Motor Museum : http://www.isleofmanmotormuseum.com

Keep your eyes open on the way to the Museum, there are some great hidden gems on the route such as this old Church…

photo IMG_3910_zpsz6rq0lao.jpg

Now back to the Isle of MAn Motor Museum :

This is a huge collection of motor vehicles, over 130 of which are owned by a father and son dup, another 150 are on loan – and I’m sure of particular interest to many visitors to the Isle of Man is the huge Joey Dunlop collection on display.

The full story can be read here :

http://www.isleofmanmotormuseum.com/about-us/

I will also have a concise gallery post added to this blog, but please take the time to allow my posting to wet your appitite and visit the Museum in person the next time you visit the Island. Set aside a few hours to enable you to walk round, and take in the exhibits. I really enjoyed the range of vehicles on display and the Joey Dunlop exhibit is brillaint!

Unfortunately there was no Flux Capacitor for the DeLorean!

A couple of hours later it was time for me to head back to the race course and meet up with the guys again. A little bit of information had come to light that had us aiming for an epic viewing point, however by the time I got to the start of the Mountain Road a RTC had closed it. The point we were aiming for was on the Mountain, the others had made through before the crash but I was now stranded.

I perched myself near to the iconic ‘PokerStars’ House on the course, got my camera out and enjoyed another sun soaked evening of practice.

When I got speaking to the guys after the practice, they showed me the photos from their spot, damn I missed out! I am not going to say where it is as it is my hope to secure that spot come TT2017!