Walking The Chines Of The Isle Of Wight

[DE&i]

Picture References To Go With My Walking the Chines of the Isle of Wight report back.

1. Dinosaur Walk Route.

2. Chines Walk .

3. Brighstone Bay showing Grange Chine and my static caravan.

Regards,

Darren.

[DE&i]

……Thursday 22nd August low tide scheduled for 4.48am the visibility wasn’t the greatest but decided to go for it and hit the beach. Decided to travel light with just a small back pack , small trowel , sample bags , two cameras of which one I use to upload instantly photos to my Out In The Field link if I so wish !

The black arrow pointing to the static caravan is where I stayed for 7 days on the site called Brighstone Bay the blue arrow is pointing to one of the more familiar chines on the island known as Grange Chine.

The best way I can think of to define a chine is they are steep sided river valleys where the river flows through the coastal cliffs to the sea. The word “chine” originates from the Saxon “Conan “meaning a gap or yawn. The term “chine” is used in Hampshire, Dorset, and the Isle of Wight.

The exact number of Chines on the island varies! The changing nature of the islands coastline means that chines are destroyed and new chines created on an on-going basis. The Isle of Wight is made up of layers of sedimentary rocks. These rocks are formed from sand and mud laid down by rivers and in the sea, between 126 and 30 million years ago. You can tell how old these rocks are from the fossils found in them.

So I really wanted to see the islands chines cutting through theses rocks revealing the layers of history written through the island and of course to see what fossils I could find.

From the picture (Dinosaur and Chine Walk Route) I walked west from Grange Chine with a plan to walk two hours along the foreshore heading towards the Needles (locally known as the Back of the Wight). But unfortunately as you can see from these photos conditions were not favourable for scouring the shingle as literally the whole of this stretch of coast was covered in seaweed.

Undeterred I continued ignoring the Chines as I went along concentrating on spotting any rolled Dinosaur bone that can be found in the right conditions but with no success in afraid. I now find myself halfway between Brook Bay and Hanover Point you can roughly picture where I am from the (Dinosaur and Chine Walk Route picture points 5 and 6).

Here I stopped to admire the Churchill Chine number 15 on the Isle of Wight’s Chines Walk picture , only a few years old but cut by a small but powerful stream , which also washes sand off the beach to reveal lots of foot casts fallen from above.

From these photos looking to the top of the cliff I could see grass growing on a layer of soil. Underneath is a brown-yellow soil and clay layer called brick-earth; under that was coarse gravel made up of large and small rocks, mostly flints, in an orange, sandy soil. These recent (only hundreds to thousands of years old) layers sit on top of the ancient Wealden rocks, which are millions of years old.

I thought it was interesting to see large and small fragments of trees eroding out of these gravels!

Churchill Chine is only a small chine dropping around 30 feet from the cliff top to the beach through soft red rock. From the beach the chine steps up towards a waterfall.

I then pushed onto Shippards Chine still heading west which are number 16 on the Isle of Wight Chines picture. There was little wildlife there and it is no longer a functioning chine as the water has been diverted into a culvert.

Total time to get to this point was two hours where I called it a day and decided to head back before I was cut off by the tide. Walking close to the cliff face back along the beach from a safety first aspect to admire the Dinosaur foot casts especially at Brook Chine number 14 on the Isle of Wight Chines picture. Where a number of them I posted at my Dinosaur Foot Casts from the Isle of Wight…….. Post.

Then back to my static caravan for a well deserved brew.

Four hours total walking time and worth every step I would recommend it to anyone.

Regards,

Darren.

Edited August 26, 2013 by D&E

[Ludwigia]

Darren...Thanks very much for this wonderful photographic description of your hike along the shore. I'd love to spend some time on that isle again someday. The last and only time I was there was in 1970 for the pop festival.

[busyeagle]

Looks like a fun walk. I enjoyed the maps and pics.

[DE&i]

Darren...Thanks very much for this wonderful photographic description of your hike along the shore. I'd love to spend some time on that isle again someday. The last and only time I was there was in 1970 for the pop festival.

Thanks for looking Roger glad it brought back some memories for you not to sure you see much of the island with one of the greatest festivals of all time going on there.

Regards,

Darren.

[DE&i]

Looks like a fun walk. I enjoyed the maps and pics.

Thanks for looking busyeagle its difficult to imagine that theres so much geology going on there and only being about 23 miles wide !

Regards,

Darren.

[Down under fossil hunter]

Really great post Darren

I am lucky to have a few nice fossils from the IOW with solid provenance including the chines they came from and by using your guide I have found the specific locations.

Seeing those photos just makes me want to collect there sooo much.

When you think of all the inhospitable collecting sites around the world (especially for dinosaur material) the IOW has to sit at the complete opposite end of the spectrum.

Do you just hire the static caravans, or do the have permanent residents in them?

Thanks a bunch

[vertman]

Outstanding report! I really like the descriptions and the images.

[Ludwigia]

Thanks for looking Roger glad it brought back some memories for you not to sure you see much of the island with one of the greatest festivals of all time going on there.

Regards,

Darren.

We were camped on the golf course and all eyes were on Jimmy Hendrix...

[DE&i]

Really great post Darren

I am lucky to have a few nice fossils from the IOW with solid provenance including the chines they came from and by using your guide I have found the specific locations.

Seeing those photos just makes me want to collect there sooo much.

When you think of all the inhospitable collecting sites around the world (especially for dinosaur material) the IOW has to sit at the complete opposite end of the spectrum.

Do you just hire the static caravans, or do the have permanent residents in them?

Thanks a bunch

Its certainly quite a surreal place if you do your research well and get the timing right with the tides around the island you can collect a wide variety of fossils . Especially when you take into consideration that you can travel from the centre of the island by car in any direction and to be on a coast in about 20 mins...!

its a very popular camping site in summer as you can imagine...you can put up a tent there or take a camper van the static caravans we stayed in you can rent all year round.....im all ready planning for next winter for some serious fossiling there.

Regards,

Darren.

[DE&i]

Outstanding report! I really like the descriptions and the images.

Thank you i cant wait to get back , theres so much more to discover.

Regards,

Darren.

[Terry Dactyll]

Darren... Sounds like you had a great trip and got hooked... Hopefully there is some dinosaur material with your name on it somewhere waiting....

[Fossildude19]

Excellent report, Darren.

Thanks for bringing us along.

Regards,