Left Weston-super-Mare at 5.45am, high tide.
Arrived 20 minutes later.
11 hours on Steep Holm exploring, meandering, observing, thinking, collecting.
Started with the exhibition. The Kenneth Allsop Memorial Committee registers themselves as a charity in 1974 and on the 25th March 1976 they bought Steep Holm for £10000. The trust maintains the island as a nature reserve and bird sanctuary and looks after the military installations. Kenneth Allsop was a broadcaster, writer and environmentalist.
Endless military buildings from the 19th and 20th centuries to explore. Nothing was out of bounds. You could walk amongst tumbling down buildings, walk down slippery, steep steps and enter dark spaces
Ammunition stores
Wartime latrines covered in lichen and nettles growing in the fertile ground
Very little bird life but if I had gone 2 weeks earlier I would have been dive bombed by the thousands of seabirds who nest there. I had a peaceful day. The only evidence of their presence were dead bodies and guano
Culvert spiders and their egg sacs in the ammunition stores
Looking south east to Brean and Hinkley Power Station
Looking north west to Flat Holm and Wales
Lackey moth caterpillars on the brambles. Picked lots of blackberries to make Steep Holm blackberry jam
Guano
Conglomerates and eroded bricks
Searchlight post looking towards Wales - walked down 208 steep steps
Elderberries
Gooseneck Spit revealed at low tide - looking towards Weston-super-mare
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