IOM - And Now For The Weather

I suppose the easiest way to start with our time on the Isle of Man (IOM) is with the weather, as it does rather impact on what you do.

Europe and the UK had a very hot and dry summer.  We lost count of the times we were told we should have been on the IOM for the TT back in early June, as they had the best weather ever for the race fortnight.

There is currently a hose pipe ban on the IOM, which will be in place for some time, as the water reservoirs are so low.

Our arrival on the island heralded a change in the weather to cool and bleak!!  That is the tower of refuge in the bay of Douglas, the capital of the IOM, on the morning of our arrival.

We went for a drive a couple of days after we arrived and really enjoyed the scenery...... The island has some fairly high areas which are proned to hill fog.  Sometimes the whole island is shrouded in a fog, which is known as "Mannanan's Cloak".  Pop over to the link to read all about it.  It is fascinating, as are so many of the myths and legends of this wonderful place.

The foggy conditions do make for some lovely moody scenes and are part of the charm of the place.

We were at the end of summer and we did have a couple of t-shirt days at the end of the fortnight, but generally it was cool, reaching only the mid teens.  However, the overnight temperatures were quite mild also, being in the low to mid teens.

As a last minute thought, we threw some beanies in our bags, not expecting to wear them.  They did stellar service.  Any Aussie would have spotted me from miles away wearing my stylish Bunnings number, but it was lovely and toasty.  As silly as it sounds, I could have even done with my long johns as we sat by the races some days.

The days were still fairly long, which means you can achieve lots in a day.  During the two weeks we were there the days shortened by nearly an hour, which was so different from what we get over here.

They say on the Isle of Man that if you don't like the weather, just wait 20 minutes.  We had a great example of that on the Thursday after we arrived.  The following series of photos were all taken on the one day, in chronological order.

What a mixed bag we experienced, but it didn't stop us doing anything.

The weather this year did impact quite a lot on the racing.  The riders were really struggling to get enough time on the road during practice week, but more of that later.

As we had no set agenda or plan for our time, we just went with whatever was on offer.  There was always plenty to do and occasionally it was nice to sit in our snug cottage and do not much at all.