Last night, late, there was some insistent, loud ringing of the doorbell. Turns out, it was the proprietress of the B and B who had gone out with her lady friends, had too much to drink (she admitted, this morning, to two glasses plus two bottles of wine) and had forgotten her key. It’s always something.

Today’s walk was around Portland Peninsula, the original Portland. How do you like that! We set out from Weymouth, did a beautiful bit of the path, then a not so beautiful walk across the road/bridge to begin the official route.

We neither dove nor jumped.

As the walk began in ernest, Wendy decided to turn back; I forged on ahead. The way was tricky for a bit, but as is my custom, I spied a few walkers obviously doing the same thing I was, and trailed them until the way became clear. Fortunately, thereafter, the path was well marked,

The day was misty, which created a quiet kind of beauty and encouraged the leaving of the camera in the pocket most of the time. But here is an opening for walking through:

When there are lots of choices, it is nice when one of them is yours.

A horse in the mist:

The famous Portland Bill lighthouse. Its fog horn was blasting away. What a great sound!

Would you believe that the mister bought this car for his Missus so that she could find it in a parking lot?! Honest!

The mist cleared after a few hours:

Whoa! These are some big rocks!

When the greyness, which to be sure, is its own kind of beauty (actually, some of the area looked like a moonscape, not that I have been there or anything, but you know what I mean) a few flowers brighten the scene quite a bit:

Dramatic!

This is an ordinary gate with a feature one sees a lot in the UK. Do you see that metal stick-like thing with a black handle? Guess what it is?

It is a gate-release so that a horseback rider does not have to dismount in order to open the gate.

There is a prison on Portland:

If the inmates could see over the fence, which they cannot, this is what their view would be:

Some goats were in their own kind of prison:

A kid having a snack:

A kid not having a snack:

At the end of the walk, almost seventeen miles, I took the bus back to Weymouth. A cup of tea and some cookies really hit the spot!

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Today was a day of touring and walking about Weymouth. Our first destination was a waterlily garden some two miles from town. On the way, we came across this establishment:

Quite startled I was! Alex, did you change professions, and I not knowing?

At the entrance to the garden was a fish pond:

But of course there were lilies, too. Isn’t this a beauty:

What the heck was a display of cactus doing in a water lily garden! This specimen, seemed to be, uhhh, particularly……. serious. Note the Buddha in the background. What does the Buddha have to do with cacti?

A lily among the pads:

This foxglove was irresistible:

Doesn’t this lily look like a lotus? Some wise guy is going to tell me that a lotus is a kind of lily, but I just looked it up and it isn’t, though lots of people think so. Be warned!

A red lily:

Lush, foliage surrounded the ponds:

It started to rain whilst we were viewing the flora, but as luck would have it, the garden had a little tea room where we repaired to partake of some hot beverage and a slice of most excellent maple cake. Revived, we made our way back to town.

Remember these lyrics (from HMS Pinafore), “When I was a lad I served a term as office boy to attorney’s firm, I cleaned the windows and I swept the floor and I polished up the handle of the big front door. I polished that handle so carefully that now I am the captain of the Queen’s Navy?” Why here is that very door!

By and by we met Benson, an eleven week Burmese mountain dog. He was very shy:

But after many compliments and some encouragement, he shook hands with Wendy:

Weymouth has a harbour:

Weymouth has such a good harbour that it is host to the sailing event of the 2012 olympics. Why there is Canada hard at practice!

Here are some of the boats in formation:

The town is still decorated from the jubilee. OK so the flags don’t show up so well, but there are strung all across the street:

Ambulances come in many varieties:

Oh, I say, it is George III! God save the king and all that! Hip hip hooray!

Choosing photos requires a lot of thought:

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You see this rather colourful looking building front? This is the place where we stayed behind the bar. It looks better on the outside than on the inside. The town of Abbotsbury, however, is adorable, and is gorgeously surrounded.

These are the fattest thistles I ever saw!

Here comes Wendy over a stile:

A quiet country scene:

Not all stiles are so charming. Not only was this one of stone (only one of two we have seen like this) but the Queen Anne’s lace in front of the step added the perfect touch:

A view across the lagoon:

We obeyed!

Poppies by the way:

No red flags were flying, so we were able to proceed:

It was cloudy all morning; finally the sky could take it no longer and it began to rain. Rain means mud. It looks like this!

There are never too many flowers:

Some people really know how to camp:

Who knew that kite flying could be so dangerous:

We reached Weymouth late in the afternoon, tired after about a fifteen and a half mile walk, easy as it was. One reason for the “tired” is that we had counted on a nice tea at the Ferry Bridge Inn about 3 1/2 miles from our B and B. That would have been a welcome pick-me-up, but wouldn’t you know, the inn is closed on Monday and Tuesday, so wet and weary, we had to soldier on.

After all that to-do about towels and hot water, we actually lucked out at our Weymouth establishment. It has both + a large tub. It is hardly a five star Hilton and the proprietress is a crab, but when the traffic noise dies down, all is well.

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First a word about B and B’s. Some have little hot water and skimpy towels, some have almost no hot water but great big towels, and some have hot water and teeny tiny towels. We have stayed above the bar and in a little building behind the bar. That one was a hoot. The toilet would not flush. Wendy had learned from her husband that in such a situation, one pours water into the bowl. Using a tea cup, which seemed to be the only vessel at hand, took quite some time, but then Wendy realized we could use the waste basket in the room as a receptacle, which proved to be much more efficient. I That establishment had beds with an iron bar across the middle and pillows that would not have been luxurious even during the war.

Perhaps the oddest feature of of the just previously described B and B, which, without exaggerating, was pegs below a Motel 6, was this attachment to the wall? Guess what it is!

Why it is a pants press, of course!

Now onto the sights and activities of the day. Here are two photos of the bottom bit of the cliffs. Ain’t never seen anything like these before! They look like a dinosaur park. These cliffs have a very thin layer of soil on top–maybe all cliffs do, but here you can see how new that top section is.

Along the beach, was a sprawling, dare I say, ugly caravan park. We learned that the caravans are allowed to stay for only a certain number of years after which they must be replaced with new ones. The old ones are shipped off to Ireland!

There is nothing like a pal to give you a good scratch when you need one.

The shadow interferes with a good view of the side of the cliff, but the point is that it is very soft along this coast, which, of course, is why there are so many major slippages and consequent diversions of the path:

Looking back along the morning’s walk:

And looking ahead:

This little dog was doing his chores. He fetches plastic bottles and crushes them for easy recycling:

A bit of flowering gorse (?) adding colour to the pebbly expanse:

The day’s official walk was only 9 1/2 miles (and for once the quoted mileage was correct) but two major attractions awaited, adding another 5 1/2 miles to the day’s total. Who’s counting?

The first was the famous swannery, which one might assume would be in Swanage, but, no, it is in Abbotsbury.

The monks of yore were vegetarians but they did eat the cygnets. In an argument, which does not exactly border on the Talmudic, they reasoned that since the birds were aquatic, they could be classified as fish.

None of the photos do justice to the elegant birds, but then again, they lose some of that regal quality when in penned conditions:

A male, me thinks. How does one know? The cob is bigger, has a deeper orange beak and a bigger black “thing” above the beak and is about 20 % bigger than the female.

Cygnets:

A pen prettying herself up for the day. That is totally not true! This is molting season and all the swans are doing this and maybe they do it all the time any way:

Anna Pavlova came with her troupe to visit the swannery. How better to be inspired for a fabulous performance of Swan Lake!

More interesting facts about the swans:

There is a sick bay for ailing swans:

Over the hospital bed in the picture below, there is a sign, which reads: Nil By Beak!

Swans are not the only fowl at the swannery.

After the swannery, it was off the the subtropical gardens where not all of the specimens were subtropical but it was a gorgeous gorgeous huge garden offering much pleasure to the visitor. The few pictures here do not do justice at all to the gorgeousness:

In the garden, a sword was discovered at some point during the digging of a bed. Perhaps a bit more sleuth work could have identified the date of the weapon:

This ground cover is common but always so pretty:

This was one gorgeous rhododendron, but in fact there were two:

One cannot leave an English garden without paying homage to roses:

Mamas and babies are always irresistible: Might this be Wilbur and HIS maaaa-maaaa:

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Yesterday’s walk was short, but adding walking on the beach at low tide plus a stroll along the east Devon path, brought the total to just under fifteen miles. Today’s walk was posted as 9 1/2 miles. For us it should have been even shorter because we started nearer the entrance to the path. But as these things go, such was not the case.

First there were diversions, three of them, due to severe erosion. Not only do diversions add mileage, but a hiker tends to have a few unintended diversions of one’s own in such situations, the directions being pretty poor, so we walked some extra miles. There were many long and very steep ascents.

When we were about three plus miles from our destination, Wendy could take it no more and decided to take a cab. It was 4:30 by then, the quoted mileage was way off—we had already walked 12 miles—so I headed off alone. It was a gorgeous walk, but there was one descent that did cause a gulp: “Down THERE? I am going down there?” It wasn’t so bad after all, and the views made it worth while. So, the less than 9 1/2 mile day turned into fifteen miles. It was most invigorating!

There were some sights of interest along the way, of course.

Not a bad view while having elevensies, eh, what?

An old cemetery in Charmouth:

What stood out was this grave stone. Do note the cause of death!

Do these cows have a great view or what! Not that they are paying attention:

Another beautiful spot for a pick-me-up:

By the time I thought to take a photo, we were half way up to that peak yonder:

You can get an idea of the erosion:

The weather has been great! I figured it could not rain FOREVER!

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Today was our first bona fide walking day. A taxi took us, because, it being Saturday, hardly any buses run—to Axmouth whence we set out to walk back to Lyme Regis, a short walk of some six miles.

It was nowhere near as difficult as the sign warns, although Wendy was not happy about the mud and the many steps. But it was a gorgeous day and most pleasant walking. Constant birdsong accompanied us for the first several miles. So many melodies!
A lot of the walk looked like this:

And this:

These were some very big leaves:

See this ruin? I would like to tell you that it was the house of Mrs. Peek, as in Peek Freans (famous biscuit makers, but hers was up the road a piece. I know this because our taxi driver’s grandmother was THE Mrs. Peek, who used to make cream tea for walkers and did serve it at her home in this very location. She baked the scones, churned the butter and preserved her own jam for the treats.

Yesterday you saw some flowers grwoing out of a wall. These were growing on top of a wall. Aren’t they pretty?

What the heck were cows doing here? This was no meadow! Maybe they were lost.

Back in Lyme Regis, we stopped at the public facilities. What ferocious looking toilets!

Oh, an emergency in town! What it was, I have no idea! But some pipe was getting a lot of attention.

OK, this sign is too too depressing:

This is such a manly shop, don’t you think?

The owner of this shoppe does not have a type A personality:

Nor does this one!

Danger at the top of the cliffs, now danger at the bottom!

One can never be too careful.
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Trip over was relievedly uneventful. Met Wendy as planned at the coach stand, then on to the train, and finally the local bus, which runs only once an hour, but, as luck would have it, pulled up just as we exited the station and took us to within 1/2 a block of our B and B. Why I feel compelled to describe B and B’s, I don’t know, but I do so I will.
Devonia House, 4 stars by the star people is more like 3. It is fine, but in no way special. Well, they do have a candy dish in the hall that has lovely toffees. Would you believe that the dish is now empty? How ever did that happen?
Day of arrival was wet wet wet, as in pouring. We did go out and about, but rather unpleasant it was, and cold and windy, too. The town is very pretty. No photo ops yesterday and todays yield was not very good, but here are a couple of the better ones. I love flowers growing out of walls, as you may remember from last year:

A pretty view:

Things for which Lyme Regis is famous are Jane Austin–why I am not sure but there are some gardens to commemorate her, and the French Lieutenant’s Woman, some scenes of which were shot here. You see that long wall? That is THE FAMOUS sea wall onto which Meryl Streep did walk in that cloak in that movie.

But guess what? It was not really Meryl Streep at all; it was the director because the day, being ferociously windy, made the narrowness of the promontory too dangerous for her.
A highlight of the day was a visit to the local aquarium. Meet “Pete;” he runs the place:

Good times do not come cheap and when you figure the entry cost for an exhibit of about 13 different kinds of specimens, plus a fee for feeding the mullets—could we say no?—well, it adds up! But it was ever so much fun. You hold the food in your fist and the fish come a running; then you open up your hand and the little flakes are gone in a jiff:

Here is one guy up cloose:

Did you know that mullets are in the shark family and that they are vegetarians? Yeah, I was surprised, too! They have about a thirty year life span, unless, of course, they should, ahem, happen to be caught
We had dinner at an outstanding restaurant. I don’t want to tell you what the catch of the day was! But it was delicious!
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This Surf and Turf adventure began last August. Can one ever plan too far in advance? Originally, the walk was going to be The Thames Path, but having encountered some ladies last summer whilst on route from St. Bees to Robin Hoods Bay, ladies who had trod part of that path, and from pleasant conversation with them, having determined that said path would be better reserved for the day when “flat” would be absolutely necessary, I turned
my attention to other alluring walks of suitable duration. The South West Coast Path immediately came to mind. It, however, being 630 miles from one end to the other, was over my physical budget. The question became, “which section?” Since the whole could not be accomplished, it seemed to make some sense to choose one 100 mile segment and add to it a different sort of terrain for the other 100 miles. That is how the Cotswald Way came into the picture. My friend Wendy decided to come along, so now we are two.

For the SWCP, I determined the itinerary, rest days, and such, then turned the booking of the B and B’s over to Contours. Ahh, but for the Cotswald Way, I made all the arrangements. Isn’t e-mail wonderful? The only small hitch is when an establishment requires a deposit, but does not accept credit cards. When this did happen, the proprietor kindly waived the deposit. Hopefully, s/he will not waive the room! Sherpa Van Service and Trip Advisor were two invaluable sites in the planning process. I will not burden with details, but if anyone out there wants to do their own planning, do know that with Sherpa, you can turn all the arrangements over to them, use only their baggage toting service, or take advantage of options in between. Their site is easy to navigate, too.

See the well-packed bag below? That is my suitcase with tons of room to spare even though it may not look it.

Why, you may ask, would anyone post a photo of THAT? I will keep the reader in suspense not a second longer. My tech support person, i.e., Alex, is visiting this weekend, and I wanted to make sure I remembered how to import photos, post them, and all that, so a test picture was required. A good thing I went through the process again because smoothly it did not go. Now, all is in place, and I am, as it is said, good to go.

Two days later, erev (the evening prior to) departure. Wendy, traveling from San Francisco, left today to have an extra twenty-four hours to recover from jet lag. The plan is for her to meet me Thursday morning, 8:30, at bus stand 12, Heathrow, terminal 5, whence we shall take a coach to Woking, a train to Axminster, and finally a bus (if the timing is right) or a cab—whoops, that should be taxi—to Lyme Regis, our first destination.

I can hardly wait!

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Location:New Haven

Some of you were worried about dangers on the walk. Well, there were some:

Fortunately, the warnings helped us avoid attack.

Also, we witnessed some serious indignities:

It must be a girl thing. Here are Mandy and Tanya taking a picture of me taking a picture of them:

Maybe I posted that one already.

So, I think that brings the photo additions up-to date.

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This is when the kvetching and the rain begin–in reverse order. What kills me is that the rain does not show in photos, but this “stream” is supposed to be dry, and don’t think it was easy getting across. No, I did not manage without help:

The B and B in Ennerdale did not have private bathrooms. One bathroom had a tub, but the owners had removed the hot water tap and there was no plug for the drain! This is how the toilet flushed:

Don’t you love it!

This poor sheep really got a radical shave:

And this is a section of the “path” in the rain. It really did not matter if your boots were waterproof because the water came over the tops.

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Location:Bishop St,New Haven,United States