Day two: On the buses.We passed the night fitfully, waking up at regular intervals. I discovered that my new sleeping bag, chosen for its smallness when packed up, didn't provide enough warmth. On subsequent nights I had to resort to sleeping with my jumper on.
Still, it was a beautiful morning. This photo is looking back from our camp site along the path we took the day before.
This is the tent we shared. It doesn't look big enough, does it! There was enough room for both of us to lie in it without being too intimate, but there wasn't really room to move around or store the rucksacks. It was however easy to set up, and not too difficult to carry (Finlay will point out that it went in his bag, while I only had to put the tent poles and pegs in mine. But his bag was bigger so it made sense!).
With the tent packed, we set off in search of the magical village of Beer. As we walked, the cliffs changed from red to white.
Before long, we came to Beer Head.
Finlay was hobbiting again, since we were walking on grass.
Beer came into sight, nestled below the cliffs.
And here it is - a pleasant village with what looked like a nice pub right at the front! But sadly it was nine in the morning, which is too early to drink beer in Beer.
Instead we descended to the stony beach and had breakfast at a cafe. [note the dodgy hat]
Bacon sandwich + tea. Hurrah! [note the dodgy hat]
Beer made up for some of the disappointing places on day one. But, it was soon time to head onward to Seaton, two miles over the next hill. On reaching the edge of town, we learned that a landslip had destroyed the road, meaning an inland diversion was necessary to get into town. Or, at low tide, you could walk along the beach. But it was high tide...
So, we elected to scramble over some boulders at the water's edge. Since we were carrying heavy and unbalancing rucksacks, this proved to be fairly dangerous. Thankfully we made it across without mishap.
Seaton looked like a smaller version of Sidmouth.... but with a clock tower...
...and a fountain!
The next stage of our journey was meant to be a seven mile walk to Lyme Regis, but we'd learned that more landslips had messed up the path. Since we were tired from day one and wanted to get to Lyme Regis without taking a boring diversionary route, we decided to catch a bus instead. There was one leaving twenty minutes after we arrived in Seaton, so we decided to take that rather than wait two hours for the next one.
Catching a bus was technically cheating. But day one had taught us that walking the distances we'd planned didn't leave much time to enjoy ourselves - we'd be constantly marching from one place to another, without the time to hang around playing Magic and drinking. This was meant to be a holiday, not an army training mission.
As soon as we arrived in Lyme Regis, we stopped for a cream tea in a cafe. Then we headed along the seafront for a look around.
Lyme Regis, seen from the Cob (which is what the sea wall is called).
Finlay standing on the Cob. The blue thing isn't a weird spade, but is his water bottle blown up by the wind.
It was now a respectable time for a drink, so we duly found a pub and had cider, beer, then gin and tonic. As we drank, we reassessed our sketchy plans for the trip. The next stage of the journey was said to be difficult and frustrating. And afterwards, we were faced with the looming presence of the large town of Weymouth - we couldn't camp there, but our journey estimates landed us in the middle of it at the end of the next day. What were we going to do?
We discussed it for ages, neither of us being very decisive. Eventually, we hit upon two solutions. One was to travel on to Weymouth, but stay at a youth hostel on Portland Island. The other was to bypass Weymouth entirely, instead taking the inland route along the Ridgeway. The Ridgeway, which was said to be covered in barrows and other ancient monuments, sounded like a good place for camping and also like an easy trek. But there were no towns along it, and so nowhere to get food.
Finally, after reading the unappealing account of the walk to Weymouth in the guide, we decided to take the Ridgeway. To get there, we would cheat again with a bus to the village of Abbotsbury. With the decision made, we played our first games of Magic so far on the trip.
The bus passed through various depressing locations, including the ghastly West Bay. Somewhere else (where was this?), the bus stopped for ages beside a small, empty and sad fairground.
Abbotsbury was a nice little village that seemed to be mostly composed of Bed and Breakfast places. It was dinner time, but the pub nearest the bus stop was overly expensive (Belgian food prices!). We found a cheaper one down the road, but for some reason neither of us felt very comfortable there. The food was fine, the beer was fine... it just felt wrong.
Night was closing in, which meant we had to find somewhere to camp fast. We hurried up onto the ridgeway, and found somewhere that looked reasonable. Unfortunately, we saw a farmer in a harvester in the distance. Did he see us? Was he going to come over and tell us we couldn't camp here? If he did, would we be able to find somewhere else before it was too dark to see?
So, we waited where we were, hoping no one would come over. No one did... until suddenly, the sheep in the next field began to rush up to the fence towards us. Dozens of them - a hundred, maybe - crowding together, jumping over each other, the nearest ones trying to force their way through the fence. We were unnerved by this weird behaviour. We thought at first that they were being herded in that direction, but no one appeared. Eventually, the sheep seemed to change their minds, dispersing around the field again.
We were falling out of love with wild camping at this point. Finlay phoned ahead to the youth hostel at Lulworth Cove (where we intended to be on Monday night) to try to get a room. They were busy, but had room for us to camp there. We'd still be in the tent, but we'd have breakfast, access to showers, and wouldn't have to go to sleep at 9:30 at night! So that seemed like an improvement.
It was still light, and we were still uncertain if we should set the tent up. We tried playing magic on one of the roll mats, but it was hard to concentrate. At last we set up the tent, and went to sleep. No one tried to move us on.
The view from the Ridgeway as the sun was setting. You can see Portland Island in the distance, and the long strip of Chesil Beach leading out to it.
