Jersey dresses up its tourist offering

The largest of the Channel Islands has great food, hotels, activities – and oh, those walks. Rose Doyle has fun

The largest of the Channel Islands has great food, hotels, activities – and oh, those walks. Rose Doylehas fun

FOR AN ISLAND that’s so nearby, there’s a lot that’s far away about Jersey. A recent, two-day visit debunked the notion that the largest of the Channel Islands is all about being a polite, pretty, basking-in-the-sunshine slice of little England. Jersey is fun. It has activities to excite even the jaded and curious quirks for the rest of us. It has good food, clean sand and an easy going way with it, all on 45 square miles of lush terrain.

Things haven’t changed a lot over the years, merely become sleeker, as Jersey, with £200 million (€241 million) investment over two years, got its tourism industry into gear, upped the ante with accommodation options from luxury five-star hotels to beach-side self-catering, added large numbers of seriously good restaurants, got the outdoors working for the gung-ho with activities like rock climbing, abseiling and sand yachting and for the lazier among us with fishing, walking and farmers’ markets.

The island has a wonderful range of tea rooms too – this, after all, is Jersey, home of Jersey cattle, where an afternoon’s dalliance over genuine Jersey cream tea is a religious occasion. Other delicacies include black butter, made from cider, apples and spices in a process that takes 16 hours. You might prefer conger eel soup, made by boiling the head in milk, marigold petals and leaves. You could whet your appetite with a viewing of the ingredients in St Helier’s early morning fish market; I saw the biggest conger eel I’d ever seen there and was told they can grow to 8ft and be as thick as a man’s thigh. A strong black coffee, stroll around the town and visit to the Marilyn (Monroe) exhibition in the Jersey Museum restored equanimity.

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But oh, those Jersey walks. There were three of them and they were what made the trip. The most energetic was a trek along the high cliffs and wooded pathways of the island’s north coast, with views of France a reminder that the Continent is just 14 miles away.

From Rozel to Jardin d’Olivet it’s a walk that takes in a lot of what Jersey’s about: farms, acres of Jersey Royal potatoes and the wealthy homes of the rich on one side; rocky, savagely lovely cliffs and the wide blue English Channel on the other. Blue Badge Guide David Le Gresley gave things historical and environmental context with good humour.

If I’d had the time, I’d have taken a moonlit walk through the island’s wetlands, where the tides are among the highest in the world and where, as night falls, you can see the star-like shapes and sparkle of marine life coming over all bioluminescence green. High tide here will cover your footprints with up to 40ft of ocean.

The second walk was a leisurely stroll through the Jersey War Tunnels. The island was occupied by Germany during the second World War and Hohhlgangsanlage (Ho8) is a web of 16 underground defences and shelters built to house 12,000 men, arms and ammunition. The whole thing, at a cost to the island of £2.5 million (around €3 million), has been turned into a fascinating piece of living history, a permanent memorial to the enslaved workers who died building the tunnels as well as a two-hour underground walk that gives a moving idea of what it was like to live in occupied Jersey, a time when acorns were used to make coffee and keeping pigeons was punishable by death. The tunnels give a sense, too, of the islanders’ abandonment by the UK – a reality nobody seems keen to talk about today.

The third walk involved visiting the animals and some of the 32 varied acres of the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust. Hard to believe it’s 50 years since Gerald Durrell began his crusade to save endangered species and impossible not to be impressed with the green beauty and managed native habitats in Durrell’s Jersey sanctuary.

Jersey roads are lined with hedgerows and every class of tree. Sand dunes are endless and Corbiere Lighthouse has a stoicism that’s not unlike the island itself.

I had a look at the gung-ho side of things as novices took the abseiling plunge down sheer, seaside walls. Nights were taken up with good food in the Castle Green Gastropub in the small but perfect harbour town of Gorey and in the Waterfront Brasserie of the Radisson Blu Hotel.

Where to...   

STAYRadisson Blu Waterfront Hotel in St Helier, radissonblu.com, 0044-1534-671 100.

Fort D'Auvergne Hotel, morvanhotels.com, 0044-1534-873006.

Pomme d'Or, St Helier, pommedorhotel.com, 0044-1534-880110.

EATCastle Green Gastropub, Gorey Harbour, St Martin, 0044-1534-840218.

Oyster Box Beach Bistro, St Brelade's Bay, 0044-1534-743311.

WEBSITESjersey.com; jerseyodyssey.co.uk for adventure activities; Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust durrell.org; Jersey Museum (jerseyheritagetrust.org); Jersey War Tunnels (jerseywartunnels.com).

GET THEREAer Lingus (aerlingus.com) flies to Jersey from Dublin and Cork.