Monday: 5th June: Weather: 10°C to 19°C: Cool Morning, hazy, warm afternoon, sunny and no rain
Kingston To Swanage: 19.2k walk: 6hrs 15mins: 10am to 4.15pm: 2 x 30min stops Ascent: 500 metres
Accommodation: Robertsbrook Guest House, 35 Kings Rd West Swannage
Houns Tout Cliff and Chapmans Pool
View east to Portland
Jan in the rapeseed plants
Ian in the rapeseed plants
300 steps down 220 steps up
Coffee at Seacombe Cliff Half way
I could walk this SWCP forever
Rock climbing on Dancing Ledge
From Durlston Pt to Bournemouth
Swanage Fish n Chips and beach
Highlights of day 23. The view over Chapman’s Pool and Houns Tout early this morning was stunning. I’d been reading about this for so long and now we’re here to see it. Then all day cliff views, sometimes through high rapeseed plants covering the path. And finally we see the end, Poole and Bournemouth, as we round the corner from Durlston Head.
We’re awake at 5.30am and have a cup of lovel Dorset tea. Breakfast in the Scott Arms isn’t til 9am, so time to chat to home and work out the logistics of flights back to Brisbane. We’d booked firm with QANTAS, but there’s a good chance we can go standby with Etihad, and get the QANTAS points returned, if we leave a day early on June 7th instead of June 8th. We’ll see how that pans out tomorrow. Breakfast downstairs is at 9am with that same lovely view of Corfe Castle, and is a Full English breakfast of Muesli and yoghurt, then Ian has scrambled eggs with salmon and I have sausage, egg, bacon, tomato and mushrooms - hold the black pudding! There’s only us and one other couple staying - they’re not walkers!
It’s almost 10am when we leave via the church and turn left down South Street towards Chapman’s Pool. It’s been hard to guage the lie of teh land and we’re not sure if we’re going along the ridge or dow, or up. But soon we know we’re going down, down, down, and that son there’ll be an up. And ether was. Firstly through teh sheep, each with twin lambs, then a long steady climb up towards Emmett’s Hill where we can see Houms Tout, the high cliff across the valley and below is the small semi enclosed Chapman’s Pool.
Onwards, then there’s a steep downhill with more than 300 steps, and an uphill of 220 steps. The steps were hard enough but much of it was through the overgrown rapeseed plants covering the tracks. We meet a Canadian couple Joan and Garry at the top, and they are walking the SWCP from Plymouth. It’s a wonder we haven’t crossed paths before.
After two and a half hours of walking, it’s 11.30am and we’re at Seacombe. Time for a coffee perched on the flat rocks. We just feel like a coffee, no biscuits, as we’ve been tasting that full English breakfast since we started. In a glance, we see the Canadian couple also perched on the rocks beyond the small shrubs, so we wander over and chat. They’ve been to the same places at almost the same time as us since Plymouth and have done a lot of walking in the UK. Like us, there’s not much through walking from village to village in Canada.
For the next two hours, the path winds around the coast, sometimes through high undergrowth, but mostly clear with wonderful coastal views. At Dancing Lodge, there’s cliff climbers dangling from ropes - no thanks! We can see the lighthouse at Anvil Point where our Canadian friends have stopped for a break, but we move on tring to get phone signal to see where we need to turn off the SWCP to our home for the night in Swanage. But no signal. So on to Durlston Head, where there is signal, and we sit and have a cup of tea while google searching our booking.com at Robertbrook Guesthouse.
In 30 minutes we’re at the turnoff, and follow the GPS signal down into the village of Swanage where we see the usual Fish n Chip shops in abundance. Strolling past a cafe, we see an array of salads and pork pie on display with a sign that says “fill a box for £7.50". So I did - cramming olives, curried cauliflower, semi dried tomatoes, seasoned roast potatoes, coleslaw, and sliced pork pie in a small box a bit bigger than a 500g of butter. Our dinner for tonight.
In five minutes we’re at teh Robertsbrook Guest house and welcomed by Clara. It looks newly renovated and is spotlessless clean. She looks at Ian and says I’m just letting you know that the room is really small with just a double bed. I say that’s OK we’ve stayed in horse floats and shepherd huts this trip , so it will be fine. It’s better than fine, it’s very newly renovated, and though small, there’s an ensuite and fridge which wasn’t advertised so we’re happy. A quick shower, and I blog while Ian pops over the road to the Co-op for a pack of 4 Guinness beers, brie cheese, dry roasted peanuts, yoghurt amd a small breadbun for breakfast.
Ian is back an apologising that the Guinness only came in 550 ml tins, not 440 ml, but I think it was only a token gesture. We sit on the bed with a beer and nuts before migrating downstairs with our box of salad, 3 cans of Guiness, cheese and our own plastic plates and cutlery. There’s a garden setting still in the sun where we plonk ourselves for a relaxing dinner ruminating how this was one of the cheaper places, but definitely one of the best value for money.
Upstairs at 7pm for more blogging and sorting photos. Then a hot chocolate while planning our very last days walk into Bournemouth to retrieve our parcel post sent Post Restante, find our apartment in Bournemouth near teh station, and re pack our gear ready for the flight home which might be as early as Wednesday morning
Excess baggage from 3 Capes