A path along an old road
Against all odd, the summer stretches on. Here we are, late into autumn, with the temperature peaking at 23C this afternoon, leaving us with no (rational) choice but to get out and explore. Follow new roads.
Or old ones, as it actually happened. We had decided to take one of those lanes that heads down toward the shore; a named one, as it happened. Easy going, even in a small car, despite the obvious lack of pavement. At the bottom, the usual sprinkling of closed cottages, and a cliff that called out and said “Look, over here”. With the dog safely attached to one wrist, we were off on an adventure.
The lane past the cottages had an intersection, with a cart track across the fields. Right along the edge of the cliff. I’d heard rumours of this road, known as the Old Queens Road and stretching from East Point to St. Peters (according to one newspaper quote). The road dates back to the beginnings of the 1800s, and was used for about a century. There had been some interesting jurisprudence, a few years back, when a landowner called the province on the game; if this was an abandoned road, then he shouldn’t have any restrictions. If, on the other hand, it was a “non-essential highway” as government planners insisted, then the electricity had to come down from the “essential highway” at no cost. And so it did.
There have been other misunderstandings over the old road, which is still visible and (actually) no worse that many of the roads which bear numbers. The yellow lines are just a construct.
Here, a few photos, showing the road as we saw it on this fine autumn day.
