The thing about these corn mazes is that there's a lot of corn. There are also other people in the maze, each of whom you will meet passing in the opposite direction several times. The correct response is to say "ha ha, fancy meeting you again!" and then to keep going where you were going. It's tempting to stop and compare notes, but other people's notes are always wrong.
By fastidiously ignoring advice from anyone else, except when it looked like they were further ahead than we were, we soon solved the maze! So, yes, we survived and we escaped, but we did regret not putting on sunscreen. Storme got off pretty lightly, but the back of my neck is peeling as I type.
After the maze, we were tempted to go on a PLEASURE FLIGHT but decided we were too lazy and sunburnt, so we just headed back to the hotel. But I'm including this picture anyway because I think it's funny.
On our last day we took the bus round to the west side of the island. The bus was a double-decker, we were on the top deck, and the scenery was great. We didn't get any photographs that really do it justice, sadly.A gaggle of Brownies got on just after we did, and spent the entire journey singing (a little), arguing (a lot) and shouting "horsies!" when they saw horses. Later on a mob of Cubs got on, but when they got to the top of the stairs they froze, whispering "Brownies!" in tones of surprise, fear and prepubescent lust. At length the Cubs decided the Brownies were too scary and retreated downstairs again.
Most of the other passengers got off at Blackgang, which proved to be an amazingly tacky tourist trap based on a smuggling theme. We smiled smugly to ourselves and stayed on until Alum Bay, which also proved to be an amazingly tacky tourist trap. I'm not sure what the theme was supposed to be, but the quaintly traditional carousel played the music from Monty Python and Dad's Army.
But the beach was disappointingly short, narrow and pebbly. Perhaps all the famous coloured sands had been used up in the production of sand-filled memorabilia for the gift shops.
The famous Needles did look reasonably impressive, at least. But at this point we were a little tired of having our money ruthlessly extorted and decided not to bother getting on a boat to see them close up.
Instead we continued our circumnavigation of the island on a number 42 bus, which the tourist guide claims is one of the most spectacular bus journeys anywhere in the world. This might not be so far from the truth, because the scenery was still great and this time the bus was open-topped. Unfortunately it's tricky to take convincing landscape shots from the top of a bus; they all come out looking pretty dull, like this one.
This photo nicely captures the risk of decapitation from flying tree branches, though. The bus was going as fast as it looks here, plus there were lots of little hairpin bends. Who needs rollercoasters?
And that's about it. At this point we've pretty much seen the whole island, so we probably won't go back for a while, unless the lures of such unsampled delights as PLEASURE FLIGHTS, the falconry centre, and the Snooty Fox pub prove too much to bear. But next time I want a bigger room.