Any walk with a beer at the end of it must be worth thinking about, but if it also includes some impressive coastal scenery you’re surely onto a winner.
I’d not been to the Christchurch campsite in the Forest of Dean since childhood, so my few days there were something of a trip down memory lane.
It was a postcard from a retired artist friend in St Just-in-Penwith which prompted a long overdue return to this quite unique part of the country, for which I have an enduring love.
An ‘Inland Coast Path’ sounds like a contradiction in terms, but this was the name hitherto given to the path that runs along the South Dorset Ridgeway, linking West Bexington with Osmington Mills to provide an alternative route to that around Weymouth and Portland on the South West Coast Path.
Somewhere near Hinckley Point nuclear power station might not sound the best place to start a walk, but please bear with me. This part of the south-west coastline is quiet and windswept, in complete contrast to some of the seaside resorts only a few miles further west.
The Isle of Purbeck which forms the eastern end of Dorset isn’t an island as such, though it is largely bounded by water: the English Channel to the south and east and the River Frome and Poole harbour to the north.
A couple of years ago on a visit to Dartmoor, I devised a day’s expedition starting from South Brent, heading up to Shipley Bridge and north onto the moor, with a return to Ivybridge along the Two Moors Way (which I was keen to sample). A bus would get me back to the start. Well that was the plan…
Dorset is Hardy country – and not just because you have to be tough to cope with the climate. Thomas Hardy wrote six novels set in ‘Wessex’, which is actually Dorset and the surrounding area. He is commemorated in two National Trust properties and in a long-distance trail, the Hardy Way.
“Summer’s lease hath all too short a date” commented the English Bard in that famous darling buds of May sonnet. Indeed, it has long seemed to me that the late spring and early summer months – April, May and June – in particular pass all too quickly, more so than perhaps any other.
We all know what it means but just how do you measure it, and furthermore map it? Well, the Campaign to Protect Rural England have done just that, producing coloured “tranquillity maps” for the whole of England and also for individual counties. Green represents the most tranquil areas and red the least, with a lot of yellow medium zones.
Somerset’s Mendip Hills AONB is sometimes compared to the Peak District, due to the profusion of picturesque dry stone walls, dramatic limestone gorges and caves. The description doesn’t quite encompass the region’s charms, though – colourful wildflower meadows, outstanding sea views from pleasant, grassy summits.
England doesn’t get much wilder than Dartmoor, as anyone who’s been caught amid its trackless wastes in torrential rain and nil visibility will testify. When the sun shines its unlimited horizons can lift your spirits and put a spring in your step, but even on the most benign day a walker must be prepared for the worst!
The finest coastline of south Devon is to be found in the South Hams, an area of land that extends south from Dartmoor. Stretching from the Tamar in the west to the Dart in the east, there are five estuaries which have to be crossed if you’re walking the South West Coast Path – not all of which are served by ferries all year round.
Earlier this year, the Jurassic coast suffered another major landslip – between Lyme Regis and Charmouth. Not that it made any difference to walkers on the South West Coast Path since the route had already been diverted inland due to an earlier slip.
The Quantock Hills ridge stretches for 12 short miles between Taunton and the Bristol Channel. The ridge is compact, the hills here petite (384m/1260ft Wills Neck is the highest point) but they certainly pack in some grandeur. The summits are open, windswept, wild and contrast dramatically with Narnia-like, densely-wooded combes grooved into their hillsides.
