2014 - England and Scandinavia - Week 4 - "Highfield" Charmouth, England

Saturday - 14 June - It's Moving Day.

A Dartmoor Relic looking at sheep

Today's drive takes us from the very south-western tip of England to somewhere else in England.  In fact, we left Penzance and drove east, avoiding Plymouth and headed through the Dartmoor National Park to our destination for the week, "Highfield", in Dorset located on the coast high on a hill overlooking the villages of Charmouth and Lyme Regis. Dartmoor NP, as we were to later discover, is filled with ancient relics from the past. We just added to the number of relics in the park while we stopped at a little pub for lunch. Sitting in the back room filled with years of smoke from the fireplace slowly burning, we watched sheep wander through the beer garden out front.

"Highfield's" back deck

"Highfield" is another English Country Cottage well appointed, although a bit dated and is rather large.and isolated  In fact it sleeps eight in five bedrooms, has two separate and fully appointed kitchens, two lounge rooms, two dining rooms, two bathrooms, a huge deck out back with great views and of course its own cubby house complete with a lounge and numerous chairs.  So if you're not doing anything for the next week, come on down. The weather is fine, warm and sunny.

For those of you keeping track of the Counties we are travelling through, like Julie is, today we had breakfast in Cornwall, lunch in Devon and dinner in Dorset.

Golden Cap looking in the distance.

Sunday 15 June - given we are perched in the cliffs east of Charmouth, today we decided to do a walk along them.  Golden Cap, the highest point on the coast, rises above all other cliffs in the east.  We headed towards it initially but it just kept getting bigger and bigger so we turned around and headed back past home and towards Charmouth and Lyme Regis.  

And of course cattle just have to lay across our path

This region is famous for its landslides due to the local geology.  Apparently there is a hard layer overlaid with clayey muddy stuff that is filled to the brim with dinosaur and other fossils. When the rain comes the clay gets clayey and slips out to sea on the hard rock below.  In fact, there are numerous warnings about how dangerous the shoreline is and people are advised to take care.  There are some retaining works going on in Lyme Regis (a village 5 klm away) to save 460 houses, stacks of infrastructure, and the Mayor's job.

The end of the 'track'

Our walk was stopped by the closure of the SW Coastal Path in front of our place due to recent, and the risk of further, landslides.  So we headed home for the rest of the day.

Lulworth Cove - start of walk

Monday 16 June -  we picked a walk from our 1,001 Great Family Walks book described as an exhilarating walk on a spectacular piece of coastline so we headed off to Lulworth Cove. Arriving early at 7.30 am, we were the first here and had the whole walk to ourselves other than a worker emptying bins from yesterday's Father's Day and English football failure.   

The walk was a rollercoaster of steep up and steep down headlands. The weather could not have been better with clear sunny skies, light winds and nearly warm temperatures.  The coastline was a picture with its chalk cliffs plummeting vertically into the light blue ocean dotted with crab fishermen.  

Durdle Door (left) and rest of coastal walk (right)

More photos of this beautiful walk. Photo taken in Scratchy Bottom

We first passed the famous Durdle Door rocky arch and then on to the chalk cliffs.  Like Lyme Regis and Charmouth where we are staying, these chalk cliffs are subject to huge landslides as well - a fact we were not aware of as we sat atop the cliffs to recover from either the climb up or for morning tea. 

After walking for 5.5klm along the clifftops we turned inland and walked through paddocks of sheep and Julie's favourite, cattle.  This part of the walk provided great vistas of the surrounding countryside.

By the time we got back to Lulworth Cove for lunch, the place was chockers with sightseers, walkers and high school students on school excursions to the area. Time to leave - so we did.

'Biggus' is in the fenced paddock ahead

Being not quite exhilarated enough, we headed off in search of further excitement. This time it was in the form of a giant form carved into the chalk cliff just outside the ancient village of Cerne Abbas - the Cerne Abbas Giant.  On researching this subject we discovered that his origins or meaning are not certain and he is known by several names with the Cerne Abbas Giant being the contemporary one.  He could be anywhere from 2000 years old (pre Iron Age), Roman (1500 years old) to a mere 650 years old (Oliver Cromwell's era).  If he was pre Iron Age he would be called "Wooded Man", if Roman then "Biggus Dickus" or, if in the image of Oliver Cromwell, the "Member of Parliament".  We would be interested in your thoughts on the best name for this 50 metre high geoglyph.

Just can't stop staring

'Biggus' from space

Unfortunately Julie read that the best way to see The Giant is to walk around him.  So we set off from the nearby carpark and climbed steeply to the fenced off field in which he lay.  We walked below, beside and over him, so it can be now said the the Cerne Abbas Giant has been completely circumcised by two healthcare professionals from Australia.  Anyway, due to the long grass we could only get partial glances of various bits of him.  After all this we read that the best way to see him was from the road 500 metres from where we were parked.  So down we walked, drove to the viewing spot and there he was - the Biggus Wooded Member we had ever seen.

That was more than enough excitement for one day so we headed off home.

Walking below the landslip - Charmouth

Tuesday 17 June - The villages of Charmouth and Lyme Regis are on the Heritage (Jurassic) Coast where there are fossils are aplenty.   In fact, the public are encouraged to remove any fossils as they are just going to end up swallowed by the ocean. Today we decided to visit them. First though we thought we could risk a walk along the beach below the landslip prone cliffs east of Charmouth.  The geology that makes these cliffs so unstable is quite obvious. Multiple thick layers of hardened mud sits atop thin layers of stone - just perfect for a landslide when it all gets wet. After about a kilometre or so we had had enough of walking below one of the biggest landslips in Europe and quickly went back into Charmouth which sits on the mouth of the River Char - original naming here.

Charmouth Beach

We decided to explore these old villages and their seasides before they too both slipped into the sea.  The day was again perfect with clear skies, warm weather and light winds.  Just perfect for donning ones shoes and taking a rolled up foam camping mattress, a camping chair, a wind break and an umbrella and head down to the beach to lie on the pebbles - well rocks really. 

Lyme Regis Beach

Lyme Regis is built in a valley between two large cliffs that are slowly migrating into the English channel.  Its famous Cobb Harbour has been around since the 1300's and, on a day like today, forms a beautiful harbour for lots of colourful little boats to gently bob around on their moorings. The Cobb was made famous by the novels The French Lieutenant's Woman by John Fowles (also made into a movie starring Meryl Streep) and Persuasion by Jane Austen.

A day at the beach in Lyme Regis

The word had obviously gotten out that the place to be was Lyme Regis as today was Father's Day in England and where better to go to commiserate England's loss in their first game of the World Cup.  

The Cobb - Lyme Regis

By mid-morning the place was packed so we packed up and headed off home, not before doing a little grocery shopping in Axminster famous for carpet production since 1755.  Wanting to take a photo of the sign into Axminster village, Julie asked me to pull over which I did. Getting out of the car was a little difficult given the thorny bushes and the ditch I had parked in so she slipped and ended up laying across the bonnet of the car basically stuck.  

And here it is

No one from the constant of traffic going past stopped to help, I couldn't because I was laughing so much.  After a while Julie slid off the bonnet, only cleaning half of it, and took the important photo.

Driving up and down very steep lanes to our accommodation is a bit scary - it's single lane, windy and narrow with high hedges either side affording no visibility at all for oncoming traffic.   We just hope no-one is coming the other way whenver we come and go from the place.

Just one of the many narrow laneways

Old Sarum Medieval City

Wednesday 18 June -  Outside the town of Salisbury is a hill, a very popular hill.  For over 5000 years it has been inhabited.  It was occupied before 3000 BC, then abandoned 1500 years later but remained a burial mound for Chieftains and Kings. It then became a Celtic fort around 43 AD before the Romans arrived.  The Romans further fortified the hill, their roads linked to it and a settlement formed around the field below it.  The Anglo-Saxons then attacked it and the Romans were sent packing and it became a great royal estate. The Vikings attacked it in 1003 AD but were driven off, but the mint and market was moved onto the site.  Today it is still a hill with some castle ruins on it and the footprint and partial remains of a huge cathedral.  For 5000 years it was fought over and today no one wants it and it is still a hill. For whatever reason the huge Salisbury Cathedral was built about 2 kilometres away and that spelled the end of the occupation of this hill. With all this history over a hill it was an obvious target for the start of todays walk.  The hill is called Old Sarum Medieval City  

Flowering grainfields

The walkwas fairly ordinary apart from walking through flowering grain fields, crossing the River Avon, then wandering through a huge beautifully manicured estate with its public artworks including a horseshoe statue of a camel plus real camels and llamas all in the shadows of Salisbury Cathedral in the distance and the remnants of a very old and somewhat important old hilltop city. 

Crossing the Avon River

A squirrel that didn't see us

The squirrel when he did see us

The camel sculpture with real camels and llamas on a private estate - we just wandered past

More flowers - and thatched roof cottage behind

The spire of Salisbury Cathedral in the distance from "The Hill"

Ramparts of the old Fort at Old Sarum

Footprint of the old Cathedral at Old Sarum

More very narrow roads

Thursday 19 June - We headed back to Dartmoor NP and TomTom took us down some very narrow single lanes with incredibly limited visibility. At one point the only vehicles allowed along the lane had to pass through a 7 foot measuring device.  Straight after was an ancient bridge over a little stream that was only 7 foot wide. The trip to Dartmoor NP took us an hour and a half followed by another 35 minutes looking for the correct car park to start our walk to Grimspound. Fortunately Julie twigged that I had the wrong orientation of the map and as soon as she turned it around 180 degrees everything made sense.  We found the right carpark and readied ourselves for what turned out to be a fantastic walk.  

Sleeping Dartmoor Pony foal and Bennett's Cross

Dartmoor Ponies -  an old and sturdy breed

We started off by being surrounded by the well known (if you know of them) Dartmoor Ponies at Bennett's Cross - an ancient waymarker possibly erected by Benedictine Monks over 1000 years ago.  We then traversed the moor heading high up to Birch Tor (big hill with rocks on top) which provided great views of Dartmoor NP.  

Birch Tor

Way in the distance we could see Grimspound and more closely some ancient hut circles on the hillsides. 

Ancient hut circles

Grimspound with its 24 huts - Dartmoor NP

After passing through some sheep and cattle farms we eventually came to Grimspound, with it's 3,500 years of history. Having the place to ourselves the whole time, we sat and had morning tea in one of the ruins of the 24 stone huts that make up this village and tried to imagine life in a place first settled 1300 BC.  We spent ages just sitting back drinking in the atmosphere of this walled village perched high up in the hill of Dartmoor NP. What a special time we had here.

Finally dragging ourselves away from Grimspound we climbed the steep hill above the village only to realise it was the wrong hill on the wrong side of the valley.  

Morning tea spot in a Grimspound Hut (Hut No3)

Standing atop the wrong hill looking over at the right hill

How fortunate we were to visit Grimspound, not once, but twice in our lifetime as we climbed back down the wrong hill and up the right hill where, at the top, were some more Dartmoor Ponies to greet us. Trekking across the ridgeline we came across three ancient burial chambers, Broad Burrow, Single Burrow and Two Burrows.

Remains of Hammel Downs Cross (1854)

More Dartmoor Ponies

Walking toward Broad Barrow burial chamber

The bull and its cows and calves

Climbing down from the ridgetop we entered a working dairy farm with its own working bull who was flat out sowing next seasons crop right in our path between two stone walls.  Rightly so, Julie was more than reluctant to push past the harem, a few calves, and the very active bull, so we made our own path through a paddock and over a stream to leave action behind us.

Further on we came across two ancient tin mines, Vitifer and Birch Tor, from medieval times and before.  The gully in which the abandoned mines now sit was once the site of the most extensive surface mining in the Dartmoor.  

This was a great walk and we finished it off with lunch at the local inn sitting outside with sweeping views of our whole walk across the hills and valleys below.  

13 century Clapper Bridge in Postbridge, Dartmoor NP

After lunch we detoured into Postbridge to have a look at its Clapper Bridge dated before 1380 AD.  This pretty little bridge has three 4 metre by 2 metre stone slabs weighing eight tonnes each, mounted on stone peers. It has survived floods and heavy carts crossing it for centuries. It is still used as a footbridge today.

Dartmouth coastal walk

Friday 20 June - Dartmouth port and castle. This was to be our last walk in England after four wonderful weeks.  

We drove to near the mouth of the Dart River, to Little Dartmouth, and walked parts of the South-West and Coronation Jubilee walkways over headlands and deep valleys finally ending up at Dartmouth Castle.  First started in 1388 AD to guard the Dart Estuary the Castle saw action during the Civil War and was used for defence purposes up to WWII.  We both signed off our four weeks in England by having a Cornish Pasty each - one meat, one vegetable - at the Castle cafe.

Dartmouth Castle

An English invention for Australia - flick sticks

The tracks can be a little overgrown this time of year

Tomorrow we leave Charmouth for London to fly to Copenhagen in Denmark to start the Scandinavian part of our trip.  The weather for the last two weeks has been just perfect, a real contrast to the wet and cold first two weeks of the trip. We love the English, their quirks (I still haven't gotten over someone sunbaking, in a bikini, on a footpath), their fabulously rich history, their culture and not to forget their walks through an extensive network of public footpaths, bridleways and permissive paths.  We just don't have these in Australia.

We are both well and thoroughly enjoying our travels.