TraceysTrek

Best bits: Finishing the South West Coast Path

Worst bits: saying goodbye to Viv and Frank

Distance: 11 miles

We spent last night in Priscilla in a layby on a country road. Sometimes cars would go past at great speed which caused Priscilla to shake. There was also music coming from somewhere close by. Fortunately, this stopped around about 10 pm and so we all managed a good nights sleep.

I started my walk this morning back in the country Park, which has many carved stones. I was particularly taken by this one with a quote by Carol Ann Duffy. I will ponder on that for awhile.

Yesterday, Viv and I visited the Lookout station at St Albans Head. So today I thought I would knock on the door of the Swanage station. I was greeted by Tracey, Trevor and Simon. They made me very welcome and filled me in on some background information which I will share in a future post but if you want more information visit this site National Coastwatch Institution

Back on the coast path, I walked past the RNLI lifeboat station with its gleaming life boat.

As I walked through Swanage town centre, I saw this delightful mosaic in the pavement.

It was then a final goodbye to Swanage before setting off up the final hill of this section.

Once at the top of the hill, I rendezvous with Viv and Frank and we walked down to Old Harry Rocks which includes three chalk formations, including a stack and a stump. This is the end of the Jurassic coast. 

We saw a cruise ship dramatically change direction as a pilot boat crossed its bows and then guided it into port.

I offered to take photographs for Naomi, Mike Seanna and Evelyn, of course I couldn’t help getting in on the act.

It’s the start of the school holidays and so the beach was full of families enjoying the sunny day. There were also quite a lot of small yachts out at sea. 

We decided that we couldn’t be bothered to wait in the queue at the café for a cup of tea so Viv went back to the car and I continued walking along the beach. Fortunately for me the tide had just started to go out because this next stretch was not passable at high tide. I picked my way tentatively across the slippery rocks covered in wet seaweed. further round there were huge areas of seaweed to cross. As I tried to pick my way across this I got wet feet as it was much deeper than it looked and obviously there were rock pools underneath it!

The final section for today and an appropriate way to end the south coast path was along the beach. I decided to leave my mark.

I had just finished doing this when I spotted a sign saying nudists. It wasn’t long before I saw some in the flesh! no photographic evidence though.

At the end of the South West Coast Path the thing to do is to jump for joy at the final marker point. Of course I also had to do the dance too and this entertained two ladies in a camper van queueing to go over on the ferry. They later donated and mentioned that they enjoyed watching the celebration dance.

Then it was back to Priscilla and a farewell to Viv and Frank who have been absolute stars this week. I’ve really enjoyed the company on my walks despite Frank having to stop every two minutes to cock his leg up on something!

Priscilla was back on tour this time to Lymington to stay with Rowena who I went to school with. we spent the evening catching up and discussing who we could remember from school and what they are all up to now. Rowena’s son James cooked an excellent meal and we chatted about Glasgow where he had been at university.