After far too little sleep, we headed down toward Oxford’s town center and soon found a nice small tea and coffee shop, where we had a light bite and some caffein. Our cell phones were still not working, so we struck out even further into the town center: onto the Cornmarket, a large pedestrian shopping street. Once inside a Vodafone outlet, a very nice young Rumanian woman explained that someone in London had sold us SiM cards from a Vodafone subsidiary intended for kids. Great! So we purchased new cards and got new numbers and hustled back to the hotel where our good friend Andrew D. was picking us up.
We were soon rolling…and stopping…and rolling…and crawling through British traffic on our way to the South Coast. Today’s plan was a bit curvy: we drove to the village of Worth Matravers, where Sue and I were lodging in a B&B, left Andrew’s car in the parish car park, and called a cab to take us to the actual start of the walk in Kimmeridge Bay.
We frankly didn’t know what to expect on this section of the South West Coast Path. It could be little more than a slog, or it might be glorious!
We picked up the path alongside the bay. A steep ascent on stairs brought us to one of the local curiosities: the Clavell Tower.
The tower was built as a lookout and a folly in 1830 by the Reverend John Richards Clavell, who had inherited a vast holding, the Smedmore estate. The tower originally stood much closer to the cliff’s edge, but the shales that make up the cliffs around Kimmeridge are extremely friable, with frequent landslips; on average, the cliffs recede about 13 meters per century. A fundraising campaign and support from the Landmark Trust enable the careful dismantling and reconstruction of the tower in its present position. It is said to be the most sought-after holiday rental property in the UK, with a waiting time of two years. I guess sleeping in the round has some particular appeal to the Brits.
Here we’re leaving the tower behind.
As you can see, we started out with a bit of haze. The first few miles were wonderful, rolling cliff walking, with the sea far below. Here are the merry adventurers early in the day.
This section, though, was unlike anything we had encountered in more than 200 miles on the path. First, perhaps because of property rights, the path clung to the cliff edge, with precipitous drops over the cliffs and into the sea far below. This pleased neither Sue nor especially Andrew, who has more than a touch of vertigo. And much of the path was overgrown. Some of this was just brush, but enough of it was brambles and nettles to be annoying. Here is one of the better sections!
But no one took the plunge, and no one died of bramble or nettle. We loved the feeling of striding high above the sea.
All good things come to an, end though, and the last miles of the day’s walk took us over a couple of large cliffs before casting us at the feet of the Houns Tout, one of the highest (at almost 500 feet) and certainly the steepest cliff we had walked over. That’s it, the white and rather shadowy presence behind two grey cliffs.
Houns Tout takes its name from the family name Houn which dates from Norman times, and Tout which means lookout post; the name therefore literally means the lookout post of Houn.
As we began the climb, the views back over the fields opened up.
Here are the boys in various postures on the ascent.
And here are a couple of shots from the top of the cliff.
That’s Saint Aldheim’s Head across the inlet known as Chapman’s Pool.
The descent was just about as much fun as the ascent: 130 deep steps down.
From the bottom the path wound around to the left, traversing a couple of large sheep farms and arriving at the bottom of the valley at a place called Hillbottom. In the local dialect, I was knackered. Which was disappointing, since I had prepared for this walk much more conscientiously than the year before. Andrew popped up the last hill and along a road and came back with the car.
Flash forward to relieve anxiety: it turned out that night that I was seriously dehydrated (I woke up twice with leg cramps). It was a hot walk, and I simply hadn’t drunk enough. Lesson learned.
We dropped our bags at our B&B and drove to the village of Kingston where there is a wonderful pub, Scott Arms. We ate out back on their broad lawn with views down the hill to Corfe Castle and on to Poole Bay in the channel.
Corfe Castle was built in the 11th century; it commands a gap on the main road through the region. It was slighted–i.e. its defenses were destroyed–after it fell to a siege by parliamentarian forces in the English Civil War. It is a spectacular ruin!
As we learned, Corfe Castle is at the center of what is called the Isle of Purbeck. It isn’t an island, but rather a peninsula famous for its quaint villages and especially for its Purbeck stone. We were still on the Jurassic Coast, and Purbeck stone is a limestone from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
And our plan was to walk all the way around the perimeter of the “Isle.”
Now back to the pub. It was pub grub, but well done. Andrew had his usual rigorous meal: lots of plants without dressing! Sue and I shared a delicious mackerel pate; she had scampi, I had fish and chips.
After a very convivial evening, Andrew dropped us at our B&B, the Chiltern Lodge in Worth Matravers. It is the home of a very eccentric couple; David spent many years working in Hong Kong, where he met Ann, his wife. Sue made the mistake of asking what he had done before retirement, and we were regaled with a very long monologue. The house is comfortable enough, but the covid paranoia of the owners makes it a bit intimidating: signs and desensitizer everywhere, masks worn in the house.
Neither of us slept much: we fell prey to second night jet lag. Oh well.