Shortly after crossing La Coupeé back into Greater Sark, you reach the shop, tea garden and chocolate-making kitchen of Caragh Chocolates. I knew this was here and intended to visit. Started by an Irishwoman (Caragh) who moved to Sark in 1989 and fell in love with the fresh, thick cream from the cows that graze on the island, it's a small, independent chocolatier that makes every chocolate by hand on site in a regular-sized room in an old farmhouse, but ships all over the world.
They sell several 12-truffle boxes (such as one for truffles containing liqueur, another for dark chocolate truffles inspired by the fact that Sark is a designated Dark Sky Island, one of just salted caramel chocolates, etc.), chocolate bars, and individual chocolate truffles that you can pick and choose. After looking at the 'menu', I chose six individual truffles: a milk chocolate Sea Salted Caramel, a milk chocolate Roasted Nut Medley, and ones flavoured with cherry, marshmallow, hazelnut, and cinnamon. Caragh put them into a little cellophane bag and I put them in my backpack to enjoy over several days.
I still had an hour and a half or so before I needed to be back at the harbour for the 4pm ferry back to Guernsey, so I decided to find Dixcart Bay. The route took me past the Stocks Hotel, the main hotel on Sark. The garden and outside eating area was busy and noisy with visitors enjoying lunch or a drink in the sunshine with their friends or families... so different to the rest of the island, and a bit strange after the last few hours of peace and quiet. The country, woodland-valley location brought to mind places in Devon and Cornwall, and made the place feel a bit more familiar, though; I guess another sort of oasis of 'normality' for those of us unused to places like this remote island with no streetlights or cars.
I continued past the hotel into the wooded valley, laughing with joy and wonder once more at being suddenly surrounded by the smell of honeysuckle. I adore honeysuckle, and Sark's hedgerows are full of it. I have never seen so much of it in my life. I'd been catching the scent of it every now and then all day, but in this particular valley the air literally smelled of honeysuckle. I have never experienced that before, the air saturated with the scent of a particular plant. I wonder if the lack of pollution from cars contributes to it being possible there. Probably. Anyway, wonderful.
I passed a pretty grey-stone cottage that I loved: it was in a nice wooded valley, secluded but still close to the hubs of the Stocks Hotel and the village, and had a little track at the bottom of the garden which led to the beach. Dixcart Bay was mostly empty except for two or three other people, but it's quite a large beach so nobody was exactly near each other. I stayed there only about five minutes, as I didn't know how long it would take to get back to the harbour. After walking uphill quite a bit in the hot sunshine and taking a wrong turn or two, I got there in time. I sat outside on the deck on the way back, which was good, but despite putting my cardigan and fleece on, I was shivering by the time we reached St Peter Port forty-five minutes later. So I sat on a bench in the sunshine for a while, and thought about whether to have an early dinner or go back to the B&B and come back into town later.
It was then that I discovered the Sea Salted Caramel from Caragh Chocolates, which had been put in the bag first so was at the bottom, had been crushed a little, the caramel oozing out. Nooo! I tried to fish it out so it wouldn't crush further and melt, but the little cellophane bag was tall and thin so I had to split the seam of the bag to get to it. I tried not to split it too far down, and managed to fish it out and roll the bag up a bit around the rest of the chocolates to return to my backpack. Of course, I had to eat the semi-crushed one, and groaned out loud at its deliciousness. Oh, it was so good! In keeping with my earlier lunch, probably the best chocolate I've had.
Seeing as I was already in town and it was about 5pm, I decided to go for dinner then, instead of going back to the B&B then coming out again... even though my appearance - after a day on a dusty, windy island where I'd been covering myself in suncream and getting a bit sweaty with all the walking - probably wasn't what the French staff at Le Petit Café prefer, haha. It's not a posh place, though, so I didn't care.
Croque monsieur was on my list of things to have at Le Petit Café, as well as their chicken liver paté and breaded camembert. Unfortunately, they move to an evening menu at 5pm so those things are no longer served, and the cafe is closed Sundays and Mondays... so they'll have to wait till next time I go back!
After shivering on a boat, I ordered bouillabaisse, a Marseillaise tomato-y fish stew/soup. It was really good, very tasty, again very well made, and nice and warming, but most of the fish had lots of bones in still. Having to constantly pick out a number of bones from my mouth after almost every bite, took away the enjoyment a bit, which was a shame. I really enjoyed the tomato-based broth though. The soup came with a few of the thin, crispy crouton slices, some garlic rouille and some grated Gruyere. Then for dessert, I finally ordered the tarte tatin, which was very nice.
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