Yes, we've been on holiday again for our Birthdays, this time we went to Dorset and the Jurassic Coast! Our Birthdays landed a little out of sync with what we usually do, so this time we went with a Friday - Friday cottage which felt a little strange as we're used to Saturday - Saturday! If it hadn't been for our Borthdays we would have had great difficulty remembering what day it was!
I have posted my diary below so you
can read everything forwards as usual, and you should also be able to
navigate on the right hand side over there too. Please let me know if
there are any mistakes and I will see to them as soon as I can!
Here's a link to the photos:
https://picasaweb.google.com/brocklehurst79/Dorset2012
Enjoy! :)
Siobhan x
Sunday, 28 October 2012
Friday October 12th
All packed and ready to go, we left Markfield at 9am. Mathew had already opened his Birthday
presents this morning and mine were now in the boot of the car along with
everything else!
The weather started out wet, and for the majority of the
journey to Cheddar was actually very bright and sunny. By the time we reached Cheddar though, it had
clouded over and it had definitely rained there. It was chilly and a little showery but the
rain was light. We started at Gough's
Cave where we wandered through with our audio guides which were quite fun! I made sure to take extra care whilst walking
around, and my photos started off quite badly but they improved as we went on –
it's been a while since I have had to take photos in the dark! The mirror-pools turned out quite well
though.
Next, we went to visit the museum opposite the cave, which
was a LOT different than when I last visited Cheddar Gorge which must have been
something like ….. well I think I may have been around 12..? A long time ago though. It was quite good, much more modern and
updated, although I found the giant rotating “skinned skull” slightly
disturbing, and the fake grave at the end surrounded by bright colourful
plastic flowers was kind of ruined by the accompanying song “Mercedes Benz”....
Anyway, we continued on to Cox's cave which was quite
different to Gough's cave. My photos
were turning out better here, although it was a little brighter. We could have done without the choral music
though. Instead of ending at Cox's cave,
we decided (or rather, Mathew decided) to go through with the “Crystal Quest”
which has strange parallels to Lord of the Rings with regards to elves, a wise
wizard, wraiths, travelling to “Mordon” and several creatures which looked very
similar to Gollum. At the end, we met
the Dragon, and we were glad to see that head of the woman at the beginning of
the Quest had discovered and re-attached itself to her body. Personally, we rather liked the doorman at
the end – he was standing so still, we thought he was a statue of a person
wearing a hooded habit, but he was real!!
Afterward, we went to “Derrick's Tea Rooms”, and each had a
cream tea. We had eaten something at
11am which had filled us until around 3pm and we still weren't really in the
mood for lunch, as such. We both also
had a pot of tea each – loose leaf – which was rather nice. They had loose leaf Rooibos, which I then discovered
they had in their shop, so when I paid, I bought a packet of it. I have never seen loose leaf Rooibos anywhere
else.
Back in the car we set out to our cottage in West Milton,
which turned out to be really very easy to find, and the directions were also
very easy to follow. It was called “The
Loft”, and was a small cottage, where the front door was more like a side door,
straight into the living room. The
kitchen was fine, but there was – oddly – nowhere to store any food other than
the fridge and freezer. The cupboards
were absolutely stuffed full with mugs, cups and bowls! Although, we had been left a tin of Quality
Street chocolates, 4 scones and a chocolate fudge cake on the top, along with
butter, strawberries and clotted cream in the fridge.
After exploring the place a little more and discovering an
abundance of torches (!), we unpacked and settled down before going out to have
dinner. Mathew had decided on The
Marquis which was just down the road, and it just so happened that we had a
sample menu in our welcome pack in the cottage.
Saturday October 13th
Today we went for a walk then visited Corfe Castle. The walk was known as “Old Harry Rocks” walk
which took us along the chalk cliffs around Studland Bay. As soon as we reached one end known as “Handfast
Point”, not only did we see the Old Harry Rocks themselves, but we were also
able to see the Isle of Wight! It was a
very clear, sunny but chilly day.
The Harry Rocks are known as Harry, Harry's wife, and
No-Man's Land stack, the latter which is the closest to the current cliff edge
and was only separated from the mainland in 1921. The cliffs here are about 70 metres in
height. Further along the walk we saw
two more stacks, known as “Pinnacle” and “Haystack” before continuing to look
out further across the water, where, before we turned back inland, we could see
Bournemouth. After the walk, we got back
into the car and went to Corfe. Before
we visited the Castle, we had some lunch.
We were very British and sat outside (in October...!) but I had some
soup which was nice and warming!
Corfe Castle was initially built in the 11th
century by William the Conqueror, whilst the keep was built in the 12th
century by Henry I. The castle was
besieged twice during the English civil war by Oliver Cromwell, the 2nd
time it was captured and blown up by the parliamentarians. This is the only castle so far I have visited
where you can really see the damage – the front gate is cut in half, with one
side much lower than the other. The
walls are chunky and crooked, very out of place. Surrounding the keep there are many chunks of
masonry sitting at all sort of angles!
It's quite fun to explore, but you can really see the damage which was
left behind.
After exploring the Castle, we visited the shop before
heading back to the car and back to the cottage, where we had tea and a slice
of cake!
Sunday October 14th
On the way to Glastonbury, we decided to visit a place
called Lytes Cary Manor on the way. It
is a medieval manor house, originally the family home of Henry Lyte, which was
then restored in the 20th century by Sir Walter Jenner. We started out in the garden as the house
didn't open until 11am. As it is
situated near the river, we had noticed that, although it was a bright and
sunny day everywhere else, we had fairly dense fog here at Lytes Cary Manor,
and near the river. The garden was
really quite spooky, and we could explore the majority of it, with the
exception of a few flooded areas. It
really felt like winter today!
Eventually the doors opened and we walked into the main hall
where there was a large roaring fire which was very warm and comforting. We were even allowed to sit around the fire,
which came as a surprise because most National Trust properties put those
little burrs on all the seats to prevent people from sitting down! The house, like the garden was small but fun
to explore. We then popped into the
small shop, where I decided to buy some hand and nail cream. I always have some with me, which I did
today, but I only really use it on the move when I forget to put some on at
home before leaving the house. I had
been noticing over the last couple of days my hands were rather unusually dry,
and the only thing I could connect it to was the water in Dorset – the ground
is very chalky here, and I could only really think that it was the chalk which
was making my hands dry.
After our visit here, we went on our way to
Glastonbury. We thought we would use the
park and ride at first after seeing the signs (especially as it was National
Trust especially for the Tor), but we then discovered it stopped running in
September, so we found a normal car park to use. The thing is, we never actually found the
park and ride car park anyway.....I know Glastonbury is said to be a mysterious
place, but a whole car park can't disappear, surely? :)
We decided that the first thing we would do would be to
visit the Tor, which we did. It took us
about half an hour to reach the foot of the Tor, and it didn't take us that
long to get up the Tor itself. Last time
I came here, we took a different route, and the one we took today I'm pretty
sure was the shortest or quickest way up the Tor. We saw a couple who decided to bang their
drums (!) at the top, and there were a few people meditating up there too. Here, it was bright and sunny, and we had
very clear views all the way around. We
couldn't even see the fog which we had been in earlier, so that must have
lifted by the time we were up there. We
made our way down the Tor on the other side, and went into Glastonbury itself
for something to eat. We found a place
called “The Orangerie” which wasn't usually open on Sundays but it was today
for some reason, so we went in and had some lunch there.
After this, we visited Glastonbury Abbey, which, after
walking around their 'visitors centre' which was more like a small museum with
really nice medieval tiles and painted window glass, and very fine stone
carving too, we went outside to explore the Abbey ruins. I remembered last time finding some medieval
floor tiles in situ which were covered by a wooden lid with a handle – only
this time, it said “Medieval Floor Tiles” on the top. Glastonbury Abbey was the earliest Christian
sanctuary in Britain and has many legends attached to it, including a couple
relating to Jesus and King Arthur!
After visiting the Abbey shop, we left for the car and
returned back to our cottage for a nice cup of tea.
Monday October 15th
WOOHOO!! My Birthday!!
I started the day opening my presents before Breakfast, and then we left
at 9am heading out to Poole Quay. We
bought tickets for the boat to Brownsea Island and got onto the boat straight
away – we had made the 10:30 crossing.
Half an hour later we were on Brownsea Island and we set off walking
right away, hoping to see some red squirrels.
We hadn't gone far actually, before we saw the first two red
squirrels chasing each other in the leaves – they are really quite small, and
very cute! I have only ever seen a flash
of fur before, but I feel I can now definitely say that I have seen red
squirrels!
We continued on the walking route around the Island, still
looking for squirrels. It seemed as
though they were mostly on the east end of the Island, possibly because that is
where all the feeders are, although we did see some of them flying through the
grass in the open park areas.
It was a very nice Island and it was very nice to be able to
spend a whole day walking on the Island too, with lots of different areas – of
course there were woodlands, and the beaches (which is where we saw a
woodpecker), but there was also an area known as “The Lagoons”, some heath land
and the Nature reserve which was a mixture of marsh and woodland.
We had come full circle in about 2 and a half hours, when we
decided to visit the cafe where I had a Ploughman's Lunch and Mathew had
casserole. Afterward, I dared to have a
slice of “Chocolate Biscuit Cake” which was a little like tiffin, only softer,
more cake like and less heavy.
After lunch, we decided to take another walk around the
woodland area on the east end of the Island where we had initially seen some
squirrels when we had started out here this morning. Sure enough we saw a few more squirrels
running around, and we stayed in one area watching two or three at the same
time, one of which had chosen a sweet chestnut to run around with, and was
having great difficulty getting into it.
This squirrel was very fast and ran around to try getting into it in a
few different places – we never found out if it managed to get through, but I
hope it did!
Soon it was time to leave. We visited the shop – which I
have to mention here is a National Trust shop.
The leaflets and the website rave on about its shop which both say sells
many unique squirrel gifts, but it doesn't – unless there is a second shop on
the island somewhere which we didn't see, there is nothing particularly special
about the gift shop on Brownsea Island!
We waited for the boat back to Poole Quay, which gave us a
little “tour” on our return journey, with added commentary at points of
interest around the Islands and no the coast line. We disembarked and got back into the car to
get back to the cottage for a cup of tea.
Later on that evening, we went out to Bridport to have a
look at places to eat for my Birthday meal.
The unfortunate thing about where we were staying, was that we had no
internet so we couldn't look at any menus online! So we decided that Bridport would be a good
place to go to, as a brochure in the cottage mentioned quite a number of places
to eat. When we got there, it was raining,
although not too heavily. I actually
quite enjoyed walking around in the rain before we settled on a pub called “The
Bull”.
Tuesday October 16th
Today we visited the Jurassic coastline for about a 3 mile
walk including an 100 metre incline around Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door. The wind was quite strong today, but we managed to stay upright! We paused on the gravelly beach for a while before heading back to the car.
We travelled along to Portland, and we had a short walk around Portland Bill, which was the name of the lighthouse. We stopped off at a little place called “The Lobster Pot” where we had some lunch before continuing on to Portland Castle, which was really an artillery fort built by Henry VIII.
Apparently, if we'd have gone down into the valley beyond
this point, we would have been in a place called “Scratchy Bottom”...!!
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