Thursday: 1st June: Weather: 8°C to 20°C: Cold Morning NW wind, sunny warm afternoon
West Bay to Abbotsbury: 17.0k walk: 5hrs 45mins: 8am to 1.45pm: 1 x 30min stop: Ascent: 470 metres
Accommodation: East Farmhouse, 2 Rosemary Lane, Abbotsbury
Steep hill out of West Bay
West Bay port from East cliff top
Steep climb out of West Bay
Slow going on mushy shingle beach
Lunch shingle beach West Lexington
West Bexington start of SDR
West to Lyme Regis on SDR
Fields of flowers on SDR
Views both sides of SDR
East to Weymouth from SDR
Ian on way down to Abbotsbury
Roses & thatched roof in Abbotsbury
Highlight of our day 19 was definitely the start of the walk on the South Dorset Ridgeway (SDR) at lunch time. The morning walk from Westbay was a bit up and down, cold and windy, then became very flat as we walked along the coastal strip on Chesil Beach.
We’re awake at 5.00am as there’s no curtain on one of the windows and the sunlight comes streaming in very early in an English summer. A cup of tea before packing and then our home made breakfast of muesli, yoghurt, bread and jam. Time for another wake-up shower before we leave at 8am.
It’s really cold outside at 8°C and blowing a strong arctic north wester as we walk the few hundred metres through West Bay and immdiately climb a very steep hill. Looking back, it’s obvious West Bay is not a traditional pretty coastal village with a port, but rather a straggly collection of mid 50’s buildings. There’s one more steep hill before the path runs fairly flat along the top of the cliff top for several kilometres enabling us to walk at a good pace. Then down into Freshwater Bay where there’s a small diversion around the creek running through a camping ground packed with school holiday makers all rugged up for the cold.
We meet a local couple who warn us it’s tough going on Chesil beach and to take the path through the bottom of the meadows. We heed the warning and take what is called teh summer Coastal Path, probably because it’s too wet in the winter rains as there’s already patches of boggy mud we have to skirt around. This path is a long way below the cliffs, just a few metres above sea level, and soon it turns into a shingle path - small pebbles about 1cm in diameter that make it really tough walking when your feet sink ankle deep in the mushy loose pebbles that move under your feet. This is Chesil Beach, an 18 mile (30k) long shingle barrier beach stretching from West Bay to Portland and we’ll be on it soon.
There’s about 2k of walking on shingle to West Bexington and it’s slow going taking us more than an hour to get to the car park at 11am - three hours after leaving West Bay and we’ve covered 10 kilometres, the last two in the slowest time. It’s still windy and the only place out of the wind is sitting behind a small retaining wall in front of the car park but it’s rather comfortable sitting on the shingle in the warm sun. The coffee and cream with two fig rolls each is really nice - again. Ian strolls off to chat to local fishermen throwing lines into the calm windswept sea, and they tell him they’re fishing for mackerel. I’m studying the map and when he returns, we check out the beach ahead where we intended to walk towards Abbotsbury, and it’s more shingle as far as the eye can see. We make a joint decision to go to Abbotsbury via the South Dorset Ridgeway, instead of via the Chesil beach route.
This was a good decision as the South Dorset Ridgeway (SDR) was a well graded track out of West Bexington, climbing to 200 metres. The 360° views are stunning though a bit hazy, and we can see ahead to Weymouth and Portland Island to the East, to the West, back to the cliffs of Dorset and Devon, to the North, the rolling patchwork farmland of Dorset, and to the south, the windswept ocean. Walking through fields of flowers is a lot nicer than tramping over a shingly beach.
In just over an hour on the ridgeway, we see the turnoff to Abbotsbury, about 120 metres below us. The track down is a walking/bridle track and at 1.45pm we arrive in the quaint picturesque village of Abbotsbury with it’s thatched roof cottages, narrow streets, but busy traffic. There's signs everywhere pointing towards the Swannery near Fleet lagoon on the coast, and the traffic is chaotic with tourists coming and going from the Swannery. Records of the swannery's existence go back to 1393, though it probably existed well before that and is believed to have been set up by the Benedictine Monks in the eleventh Century.
Our East Farm BnB check-in is 4pm, giving us time to find the local SPAR, and sit in the park opposite for lunch of bread, butter, cheese and meat with a cup of tea. We meet up with the girls we’d seen back in West Bexington. They tell us they did a circuit along the SDR then walked back along Chesil shingle beach from West Bexington to Abbotsbury - the bit we didn’t do. They said it was terrible, re-inforcing our good decision to come via the SDR.
At 3.30pm we consider it close enough to 4pm to check in at the farm house, but there’s no one around except the horses, dogs and cats. It’s a real working farmhouse. We stroll down to the park to sit and sort photos for half an hour and chat to Donna in Norway and return to the farmhouse at 4pm. No one home!. I ring and a young boy answers the phone and we meet him at the door. He tells us Grandma is at the hair dressers, Mum is in Dorchester and his Auntie is out with the horses. He invites us into the 19th Century sitting room set up for breakfast, and soon Auntie Sam arrives and shows us to our room which is straight out of a Laura Ashleigh magazine. She warns us about the low door heads, but Ian has already bumped his head twice.
After a warm shower while washing our socks in the base tray, Ian trots back to the SPAR and buys a 4 pack of Guinness to go with all the left overs we have - stale bread, cheese, nuts and a packet of potato chips. We’re a bit full after a late lunch so a beer with a snack is just perfect, chatting about the wonderful SDR.
Ian bumps his head a few more times then a bit more blogging and sorting photos with a cup of tea and bed ay 9pm.
Lunch in park near SPAR Abbotsbury
Thanks Donna for the padded seats
Abbotsbury history time line