If you have been following my account of last June's holiday to Dorset, you might be thinking what a terrible, rained-off experience it was, glad I never holiday in an English summer.
True, it did rain rather more than we hoped, but we refused to let that ruin our holiday. In fact, I would say, because the forecast contained so much in the way of rain, we planned carefully to maximise the amount of time available in between the showers.
The forecast for the Monday did not contain much in the way of rain, so we thought it safe to venture further afield, east of the big roundabout at Dorchester.
The Rough Guide to Dorset Hampshire and the Isle of Wight has a list of 18 places not to miss. Number one is the South West Coast Path. Too daunting to walk all 630 miles, although we dipped in and out, so we plumped for number 2 attraction, Durdle Door, together with Lulworth Cove*.
I disliked this sign with a passion. The blanket ban on 'photography, filming or painting' for publication, without permission. As far as I'm concerned, this is a public place. I don't really care that the land is 'owned' by the Lulworth Estate, and has been for several generations, or was previously part of a larger estate 'owned' by some offshoot of the Duke of Norfolk's family. The lands were probably originally seized from common ownership in reward to some favour to a King. Now, too much time has passed to campaign for confiscation of such lands, but these greedy landowners should learn a bit of humility and not forbid anything that is usually lawful in public places. My old mate Scaryduck, a sometime resident of the area, tweeted me about the exorbitant car parking prices, to which I could only reply
Yeah, and they can't even be bothered to install a lift. I mean, what's that about!
Anyway, we got out of the car, and went for a walk along the clifftop, admiring the view. I have to say that it really is a sensational view. Photos don't do it justice it. Polar opposite of the immense sense of disappointment when I saw the Giant's Causeway. A case of expectation management. Something with 'Giant' in the name is set up to fail. Whereas,'Door' - you're inclined to think 'whevs', then, bam! Cool! I took so many photos, it really was like sacrificing a hand-reared piglet ditching the ones I'm not blogging.
It was a very strange day; one minute we were sitting happily on the clifftop, debating whether to descend down the steps to the beach down below, Jimmy worrying whether I had the stamina. The next minute, the heavens opened, and we joined a Gadarene stampede back to the car park. Miserably digging the waterproofs out of the rucksack, hastily trying to protect the camera, and suddenly feeling in so much pain as I struggled to climb back up the stony path. Back in the car park, the sea mist...fog... made visibility even in the car park just a few feet. It was a difficult drive back through the pub-less Winfrith Newburgh - which I instantly adopted as my future nom de plume - to the Red Lion on the A road. The pot of tea and toasted sandwich were very welcome and the Red Lion seemed a nice enough pub if nothing remarkable.
The weather cleared somewhat, and we decided that it was time to return, go past Durdle, and discover Lulworth. Scary had warned me that it wasn't exactly full of lulz, indeed I feel that in some ways I was a slight inspiration for his later blogpost On Lulworth Cove
The short version was, we went and it rained. The longer version, it varied between pissing it down and a superfine drizzle. Rubbish for taking photos, even when there were not raindrops on the lens. I think a poor quality unedited phone photo summed it up better than these snapped in RAW and edited in Lightroom!
Yet I was so much happier than if we had been there in blazing, glaring sun, our tranquility disturbed by assorted crowds. Instead, we were disturbed only briefly by Performance Parent giving his Infant children an A-Level Geology lesson with agreed Learning Outcomes. We barely noticed the beach dogwalkers who kept to themselves. And we even had Lulz, gawping in awe at the Corporate Oiks copiously knocking back fizz before weighing anchor and sailing off into the open sea with not a life-jacket between them.
My West Bay friend had said that Lulworth represents one of the great missed opportunities of business - such scope for a coffee and ice-cream place. Admittedly, there are two apparently very good eating places next to the beach, and Rough Guide recommends a third in the village, but sometimes one just wants a snack.
I must have read about Enid Blyton's connections with Dorset, because I tweeted
For a few moments I felt I only needed Julian, Dick, Anne & Timmy the Dog in order to have a Famous Adventure
I was not a massive fan of Enid Blyton as a child but I did like her ability to evoke a place. Characters were two-dimensional and narratives were both fanciful and predictable. But somehow, Lulworth brought back the best of Enid memories.
We would have liked to have stayed longer, but when the rain starts to pour down, the pleasure is gone and is replaced with a burning urge to hit the road and get home!
The journey back was uneventful until just a few miles outside Bridport. We were driving at some not excessive speed along the dual carriageway A35, when, suddenly, "Woah, where's the road gone...and the fields and stuff?"
I had noticed the warning signs when we first drove along there, on day one, before we had ever set foot in Bridport. But I told myself 'So what - those are permanent signs. Obviously there's a risk of fog in, like, November, but this is June, almost exactly midsummer.' There was fog. It went on for several miles. Almost all the drivers slowed down to little more than a crawl. Apart from one, of course, who decided that fog and almost zero visibility was not going to stop him driving at 70 (or whatever), presumably because 4x4s have superpowers to combat these things!
We ended up in Burton Bradstock for dinner, at the Anchor pub. A strange place. I feel, actually, I can be more candid now, because it's been taken over by a new couple. I've seen a review online, not long before our visit, which referred eloquently to 'indoor tumbleweed ambience', which absolutely matched our experience. We were greeted and served by a very chatty member of staff. As it happens, I was in a mood that I didn't mind her chatting, but on a different occasion, not being left alone might have been very annoying. The range of food available was immense, almost too much choice. We took some dorky photos (I don't really have a lop-sided
body, honest!). I had a Bouillabaisse, which was definitely a Supper of Champions. We resolved to return later in the week. In the end, we didn't, but that was no reflection on the quality of our meals. "Tasty" was the word I tweeted at the time.
I finished the day by reflecting:
I briefly thought about snobs of limited intelligence who proclaim with a shudder 'I can't imagine how anyone could enjoy a beach holiday'. I laughed at the snobs. Then felt a passing pang of pity. But it didn't last.
I had started the day by observing:
Watching a mother duck try to shepherd 7 tiny ducklings across the A35. Heartbreaking to think how that will end
More photos from this, and others from our Dorset holiday are in the photo album, Dorset
*for completeness, the rest are:
- Winchester Cathedral
- HMS Victory
- Abbotsbury cygnet hatching
- Fossil hunting along the Jurassic coast
- New Forest ponies
- Old Harry Rocks
- Corfe Castle
- Brownsea Island
- Hive Beach Cafe
- Tyneham village
- Cerne Abbas giant
- Surfing in Boscombe
- The Spinnaker Tower
- Bournemouth Beach
- The Needles
- The Isle of Wight Festival
