The co-ordinates take you to a car park along Brading Down Road. There are also other car parks along this road, which are similar to this with views out towards the south of the island.
Brading Down lies at the eastern end of the Island’s iconic central chalk ridge (the 'backbone' of the Isle of Wight) and to the west of the gap where the town of Brading is situated.
The island's backbone was created millions of years ago. Over an immense period of time huge deposits of chalk were being laid down at a rate of about 2.5 cms (1") per 2,500 years; the depth of the chalk thus indicates a deposit period of over 50 million years. On top of this other layers of sand, clays and gravel have been deposited, some of which have been tilted giving near vertical sections and which can be seen as coloured rocks at both Alum Bay in the west and Whitecliff Bay in the east. This tilting of the rocks was caused by incredible pressures within the earth's crust which led to a gigantic buckling of all the bedded layers of rocks - at a time when the Alps mountains were formed some 22 million or so years ago. From this folding about 644 kms (400 miles) away the ripples led to the uplifting of what is known as the "backbone of the Isle of Wight" and which divides the Island into two distinct geological parts - Cretaceous - in the south and Palaeogene in the northern half - with a variety of drift deposits on top. Brading Down is located on this backbone.
Your tasks
To log this cache, you will need to complete the tasks below. Please message us with the info (rather than post it on your log). You can log a find once we have been sent a message. We may delete your log if your answer is way off the mark.
- Underfoot in some parts of the car parks, and especially on the down itself, what kind of rocks and stones can you see? (Colour, size?). What type of rocks do you think these are? (NB NOT THE CAR PARK GRAVEL / STONE CHIPS)
- The road is on top of the chalk spine. To the south (looking towards Brading Villa and Sandown) you will see fewer trees growing on the chalk grassland, than in the clay soils to the north. Why do you think this is?
- As an optional extra, post a picture on your log of yourself and / or your GPSr at the car park with the view looking south.