West Bay to Abbotsbury

West Bay to Abbotsbury - Friday 24th April 2015

Path Facts - Length: 9.3 miles, ascent 665 ft

Left before 9am. Overcast day. Got a packed lunch from the B&B and a snack top up from the local Spar.

The first hill up and out of West Bay is short but sharp and there were a few similar ones until Burton Bradstock where the path joins the start of Chesil Beach.

I could see why some would find Chesil Beach far from exciting walking. You have to stay back from the edge to avoid wading through shingle. This means you can't see the sea. It's all pretty flat and, as it was misty, there wasn't much to see of anything! Having said that, I like variety and this was different.

We had a short stop at West Bexington for a snack then forged on. From a previous visit I seem to remember St Catherine's Chapel on the hill at Abbotsbury being visible from some distance away. But couldn't see much of anything today.

The path cuts inland at Abbotsbury avoiding a marathon long trudge along Chesil Beach. We cut up the hillside to the chapel and sat and had lunch outside overlooking the quaint village of Abbotsbury. A nice, peaceful spot to stop at the end of this particular leg.

A take away tea a cafe in Abbotsbury then sat at the bus top for the trip into Weymouth. The bus takes about 35 mins and dropped us right at the King's Statue at sea front about 1 minutes walk from the B&B. Dropped our packs off and had a wander around Weymouth. I've been here years ago but had better memories of it. Felt a bit run down and a few too many pub crowd types.

We'll be back here in August for a few days to do the stretch around Weymouth and Portland.


Info

Accommodation - B&B Weymouth

Location *** really central, but this also meant noise from pub crowd, friendly staff

Room **** basic but spacious and comfortable

Facilities ****

Noise **

Food ****

Ambience **

Price *** £80 for the room


Food – Prezzo

Quality ***

Price ***

Lyme Regis to West Bay

Lyme Regis to West Bay - Thursday 23rd April 2015

Path Facts - Length: 9.8 miles, ascent 2687 ft

8am - Very nice veg breakfast. Overcast.
The route out of Lyme Regis feels rather bitty. It tries to stay clear of the road but then just feels like a bit of an unnecessary detour. There's a really dilapidated crazy golf course shortly before cutting through Lyme Regis golf course. We were trying to think of ways to big it up and get it some publicity. Maybe Gene Simmons from Kiss complete with flame throwing cod-piece singing "We've got crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy golf!", or Seal: "We're never gonna survive unless we get a little crazy (golf)". Err, It was funny at the time, you probably had to be there.

The path out of Lyme Regis climbs up to a fair height then levels off through the golf course before dropping right down again into Charmouth. It would be possible to avoid some of this but we wanted to have a look at the fossil museum and shop there which is well worth a look.

We had to wait in the cafe for half hour though for the museum to open at 10.30am. Not the greatest cafe. Luke warm coffee and not particularly friendly. Its funny the narrowness of the world some people live in. Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage site and people come from all the round the world to see it. Seems that some people who've always lived there don't feel the significance of the place very much.

There were loads of sparrows outside nesting in the wall.

Gambled with walking through the closed path through another landslip. Although quite a large area had slipped it was by quite a small amount. Hence walking wasn't difficult.

After a few undulations the ascent to Golden Cap begins. This is the highest point on the South Coast but is still only a measly 627 ft as opposed to High Cliff at Crackington Haven at 735 ft or Great Hangman at 1043 ft. Nonetheless, a reasonably sharp ascent to some great views at the top. Sunny by this point but a coldish breeze on top.

Descended into Seatown for lunch at the Anchor Inn. Good food. Not that cheap.

Ascending again to cliff height after Seatown there are some great views back to Golden Cap and on towards West Bay and the near vertical cliffs that surround it.

Having again gained a fair amount of height the descent to West Bay is quite a long way down! West Bay was great. We really enjoyed it. Arrived about 3pm.

There's an interesting little alternative cafe type area, a good choice of restaurants, inland paths along the river and a disused railway line and the spectacular vertissimo cliffs.

Particularly recommend the "Snack Shack" amongst the little group of food outlets at the harbour. The gnarly guy who runs it has a pretty sharp wit. There is  the usual SWCP crime element though...

Yet another great B&B at Seadale. Really nice room. You can walk along the river back to the centre of West Bay for food. We stopped at the George in the PM for food and drink.


Info

Accommodation - Seadale

Location **** a bit off the path but a good location nonetheless

Room *****

Facilities *****

Noise *****

Food ****

Ambience ****

Price **** £70 for the room


Food – The George

Quality ****

Price ***

Beer to Lyme Regis

Beer to Lyme Regis - Wednesday 22nd April 2015

Path Facts - Length: 8.3 miles, ascent 1560 ft

Sunny already at 7.30am. We can't really complain about most of the weather we've had on this walk. I'm actually a bit burnt from yesterday. Walking basically in one direction all of the time you get to be red on one side and white on the other. This, coupled with the usual walker's tan with shirt, shorts, sock lines, means you don't really get the sort of sexy all over body tan like you might get lying on a beach. But who wants to do that?

8.30am breakfast. Left at 9.15am. There's a short but slightly tricky navigational section before arriving at Seaton. Also the navigation on initially arriving in Seaton was tricky. You can generally just stick as close to the coast as possible but not this time. The diversion is unexpected and not as clearly signposted as it could be.

I don't enjoy bad-mouthing the places we go to but, to be blunt, Seaton is a bit of a hole. There's some really ugly concrete block type flats near the sea front. The rest of the town isn't that much better. A bit like one of my colleagues once described Weston Super Mare: "Like Stevenage with a pier". It looked dire even in blazing sunshine. Can't imagine a grey day in winter.

We got a packed lunch from a small cafe and some further supplies from Tescos then left Seaton about 11am.
The next stretch goes along Dowlands Cliff and landslips. This is a longish stretch where a large length of cliff has slipped and then become overgrown with vegetation. Due to recent landslips there were major diversions and we followed the route along quiet country lanes and a track through the rather posh Rousdon Estate.

At a later point, after discussion with walkers coming the other way, we decided we would forge a route back onto the official path. This involved a bit of dense vegetation and one small fence but wasn't too much trouble. It sounds like many folk had ignored the diversion completely. This is a bit of a tricky area: I can see that the local authority need to cover themselves from health and safety negligence. On the other hand, many of the slips are less extreme than you are led to believe. I suppose there is an increased risk of further slips but you'd have to be pretty unlucky for the slip to occur right at the moment you were walking on it.

Having got back onto the path, this is quite an interesting and different stretch. Walking along the slipped land is a bit like being in a different world - not quite Land that Time Forgot but a sliver of that.

Eventually the Dowlands section opens out and descend down to the Cobb on the West side of Lyme Regis. There was no obvious sign that we had entered Dorset. Stopped for a cuppa along the sea front. Booked a likely eatery, dropped the packs off at the B&B about 3pm then had a wander around Lyme Regis. I like the old, labyrinthian bookshop and the fossil shops. Also went round the museum which is worth a look.

Ate at the Royal Standard in the evening. Pretty cold after the sun went down. Quite good food but not much of it. Slight mix up with the deserts but no great complaints.
An evening view towards next day's trek up Golden Cap.

Special recommendation for Albany Guest House. They were fairly newly opened. The rooms were really nicely done and they were very friendly and looked after you. Book now!


Info

Accommodation - Albany Guest House

Location ***** on the path, on the East side of town.

Room *****

Facilities *****

Noise *****

Food ****

Ambience ****

Price **** £75 for the room


Food – Royal Standard

Quality ***

Price ***