We woke very late and decided to have a morning on foot rather than on saddle. We explored the delightful Steephill Cove, the coastal footpath and the Botanical Gardens. Due to subsidence the coastal footpath has been diverted through the Botanical Gardens so we thought we would take the opportunity to visit them even though lots of signs tried to persuade the coastal footpath walkers that they should visit the paying kiosk, we did a quick tour and got back onto the footpath to do some geocaching.
We knew we had to get back on the bike as the idea of this trip was to explore the Isle of Wight, so after lunch we set off for Shanklin. The road to Shanklin was hilly and busy but we arrived to find Shanklin was a pretty,old fashioned seaside town. We parked the bike and joined the throngs of oldies at the seaside. We didn't notice any other oldies in padded shots and lycra so we might have looked a little odd. I was wearing two pairs of padded shorts to see if the extra padding helped. We then ventured on to Sandown the busy road was pretty horrendous, but by now the sun was shining and I had expected to find Sandown to be more commercial and a bit tacky but it was a pleasant enough seaside town with a lovely beach. We cycled along the prom and back and discovered the prom stretched all the way back to Shanklin which avoided the horrendous road. We cycled past rows of colourful beach huts, school children said we were "cool" and "awesome". We tried a different route back to Ventnor it didn't avoid all the hills but it was a less busy route and the downhill into Ventnor was as scary as ever !