Best bits: walking with Discover Adventure team
Worst bits: watching 4 small boys throw pebbles at each other
Distance: 10.6 miles
Viv and I were up and out early this morning as we had been offered a complimentary breakfast at the Brewers Fayre in Weymouth. Andrew and the team hosted us providing a fabulous carbs loaded breakfast.
We then waited the arrival of the Discover Adventure team. They had offered to walk with us today providing moral support and excellent company.
After a short walk along the seafront, we soon got out into the countryside. It was cool to start with, but then the sun came out and the sea remained relatively calm for most of the day. We even walked for most of the afternoon in just our T-shirts.
We bumped into Scot who happened to be the son-in-law of Bob Croucher who had walked round England at the age of 65 raising money for charity along the way. I have a copy of his book ‘A walk around England’ at home. Scot is new slouch himself as he has been doing many long distance walks and cycle rides.
We stopped for a tea break at the reef café which does very nice cakes and just as we were leaving Rory asked if we could have a photograph.
We soon got back out on the walk and the scenery opened up in front of us. The white cliffs looked stark against the blue of the sea. Rob entertained us by his variety of camera positions, including lying on the ground with the camera close by. I’m looking forward to the resulting video.
It was interesting for me today not to be the front person, although it’s usually just myself walking, so I mixed it up a bit by sometimes being in the middle and sometimes at the end of our group.
The signs for the coastal path here are not wooden, but in fact stone and look like headstones. This one was particularly entertaining as everyone scratched their bottom as they went past.
Durdle Door was the main event and today it looked particularly spectacular. The sun was out, the sea was calm and looked aquamarine. Apparently Durdle Door is probably the most famous stone arch anywhere in the world. It was created when the sea pierced through the Portland limestone around 10,000 years ago.
Today we were celebrating the fact that I was at 2000 miles into my walk and so what better way to mark it than to do the dance 5000 miles with Durdle door in the background. Everyone were good sports and joined in enthusiastically.
We walked to Lulworth Cove, which was our end point for today. Rob treated us all to fish and chips which we took to the beach to eat there. While we were there, we people watched. We were all anxious as four small boys were playing by the sea and then it escalated to them picking up large pebbles and throwing them at each other. We are all relieved when a parent intervened.
Rob told us about all of the different types of fossils that he had found in the past and the best places to find them. Apparently he had once found a whole tusk of a woolly mammoth on the Isle of Wight.
After lots of hugs and goodbyes to the team Rob took Viv and I back to Weymouth. Back at Claire’s house we had a shower and spent the evening doing logistics, yippee!
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