Nice day, woke early got back to sleep and had a reyt long warm shower at 10.30 am. Heavenly. I went down to pay for the pitch for three nights and they said just to make a donation to RNLI. I washed my clothes at the launderama and then had breakfast/lunch in Swanage. No walking today – just waiting for tomorrow. I think there’s a reception committee at tomorrow night’s hotel but we’ll see. Certainly the East Dorset Boy Scouts Marching Band will be there.

Nice view from the campsite.

Deborah got down at 14.00 and we had a walk on the beach and back and then a couple drinks with John the farmer who came up from Bigbury on Sea.

Andy Mandy arrived just after dark and we put his tent up then all four of us went downtown for a nice Italian meal.

All set for tomorrow. Night Night kids.

I’m so happy that I got such good weather just about all the way round and some good sites. The last 24 hours have been a glimpse of what might have been, and if it had been I’m not sure I would have got this far. The site has great views but the ground is stony and it’s reyt difficult to get a tent peg in past halfway. I did me best last night as wind was forecast. And it came. I was up in the night quite a few times replacing pegs that Wilson pulled out as the wind caught him. It also started peeing it down at 4am and didn’t stop. I got up early and secured Wilson with rocks on him and ran down to the main road without my rucksack to catch the 8.05 from Swanage to Poole. I needed to get to Kimmeridge Bay where Martin and Linda had saved me from my fatigue. This was the only bus that went anywhere near there and it dropped off at a small village called Kingston, a 5 mile walk to Kimmeridge Bay along the chalk ridges inland. It’s a good job I had my Swiss Army Poncho, down to my feet, otherwise I’d have ended up more soaked than I became.

The wind picked up very strong and on reaching Kimmeridge I thought I’d get breakfast in the cafe, which as it happens closes on a Monday. That was it. Nothing between Kimmeridge and Swanage, 13.5 miles. Luckily I’d bought two Bounty bars and a Scotch Egg whilst waiting for the bus and I’d filled up my water bottle. Setting off the storm was the worst I’ve walked in. I clung to, or climbed over and walked the other side of the farmers’ fences as I was concerned that I’d get blown over the cliffs, which were still bucking and diving from sea level to 400 feet with strength sapping frequency. I was carrying all my valuables inside two Coop bags. It must have looked a little odd with a bloke dressed like Rambo carrying two coop bags, one inside the other, getting blown about by a hurricane and getting soaked. The path was so wet I was slipping and falling in the mud. How miserable could it get? But sometimes I don’t give up. I just get a grim determination and get on with it.
This is Chapman’s Bay in the wind and rain.

I made it up a very difficult hill where the mud was so bad and the incline so steep that I kept slipping down nearly as much as I climbed up. There, at the top in the middle of nowhere, was a memorial to those Royal Marines killed in conflicts since WWII. I climbed over the steps to it – why there in nowhere land? I read the inscription and messages spread around. As I climbed out over the steps I didn’t know what to do to pay my respects for these brave lads who won’t ever come home. I saluted and wept for them in the wind and the rain. I couldn’t help it. So brave and killed in shitty places.

Then a miracle of the (white) rose. The wind dropped, the rain stopped, the clouds began to lighten and break and the path started to even out. I ploughed on and eventually after seven hours of first putting boot to sod I came back towards Swanage, and another distance view of the Isle of Wight.

I hadn’t seen another walker all day.

Swanage Bay and Swanage front, so glad to get there.

I’ve done 18.5 miles today in the worst conditions I’ve experienced as a walker. I’m proud of mesen. I rewarded mesen.

I want to go home now to my old dear and a warm fire. Seven miles to go. A day off tomorrow when Andy Mandy and Deborah come down. It’ll be great to see them. Wednesday the push on to the finish. Party time, excellent.
Night Night. I’m nearly done.

I hoped yesterday that I’d dash round to Swanage today and have a day off tomorrow. Last night was freezing. I slept little as a consequence and was tired when I got up at 6.30, much later than I aimed for. I took a wrong turn first thing and again went through a cordoned off area at Lulworth Cove where the cliff had collapsed. Nothing wrong with it unless you have epileptic fits in which you levitate sideways. The cliff path is up and down almost vertically on occasions (well it felt like it) and this section is ranked as Severe on the SW Coast Path website. It felt like it. I stopped for a cold tin of baked beans and a tin of corned beef for breakfast. The sun was out, beautiful morning, but I was knackered.
Lulworth Cove was its usual serene self, with the Isle of Portland in the background.

I made it round almost to Kimmeridge Bay and a bloke coming the other way said summat, I looked up and it was Martin Baverstock, our very good friend from Bristol with his missus, Linda, behind him. I was so pleased and surprised to see them. We walked up to their car and went to Swanage where we had fish and chips, ice cream and they took me up to my site.
What good mates.

Over Linda’s left shoulder, to our right in the distance, you can see the sun shining on the white cliffs of the Isle of Wight.

I then check on my donations and find new ones from Lex, my Dad and Lisa. I’m up to £2,000 thanks to dear friends and family. It is going to a right good cause. Thank you everybody who has donated, it is wonderful.

Jet boosted viewing figures. A bit of a looker.

Tomorrow I need to get back to where I finished and walk round from there. At least I won’t have the full pack on my back. Sleep well dear family and friends and friends I’ve not yet met.

Second only in aggressive intent to – ‘Are you looking at my bird?’
Well judging by the viewing statistics it seems that you are looking at my bird. Well, my youngest daughter Jet, who created a peak in viewing when I put the picture of her on the catwalk in my blog. So here we are again. I walk 602 miles (28 to go) and get decent viewing figures. Along comes Jet doing bugger all and the viewing goes bananas. I got my top off yesterday and still no reaction. So here goes – another dose of the beautiful Jet! What’s she got that I haven’t got?

It was an early start this morning, I got up at 6.15 to get Wilson packed away before the rain came, and it did come at 6.45. Moving east quite quickly now to try to get a day off before Andrew and my Sis (Deborah) arrive on Tuesday. Probably play Pitch and Pute on Monday if I get some time in Swanage. Francis, did that make you laugh?

The grey morning slowly cleared, this is looking back to Weymouth and the Isle of Portland.

And when it cleared it was glorious again.

I was aiming for a campsite on the hill above Durdle Door, a fabulous, natural chalk arch and within two miles of it the path began to weave up and down again quite dramatically. I’m used to it now and didn’t even need to take a breather on the upward sections. It’s a beautiful sight Durdle Door, as is the bay beyond it, with people still enjoying the warm weather by swimming in the sea.

I’ve made it here and I’m going to get Wilson up and get the earliest night in history. I’m aiming to get up at 5.00 tomorrow to make sure that I can cover the 21 miles to Swanage. The penultimate hike. The last one on my own.
Home soon.

I just wanted to slightly qualify my blog in that my observations regarding the Isle of Portland did not take into account two factors that could have enhanced substantially my appreciation of the place.

1. Quarry Sculpture
I diverted from the coast path to pass through a disused quarry reputed for sculptors practising their art. It looked interesting.

2

2. Me
Just the fact that I was there today walking all the way round it, spreading Elven vibes added enormous value.

The Island is by the sea, obviously as it’s an island – it could have been in a big lake – but it’s in the same class as the World Heritage Coast in Cornwall. It’s ruined by past primary industrial defecation. Give me decent inland rather than indecent island any day.

Can I just say before I go how much I owe to Wilson. He’s been a brick, even though he was wounded by barbed wire early on. As soon as you give an inanimate object a name it assumes a personality in your mind. Not at human level but at least at dog level and Wilson doesn’t leave toxic plastic bags on the coastal path. His personality traits are reliability, durability and never complaining. A lot of people have referred to Wilson and we clearly relate to him. I say him because Wilson’s a masculine name innit!

My first car was a Morris Minor, 1955 split windscreen, black, XNU362 and his name was Tank. Ten years of faithful service. He did over 150,000 miles, unheard of in those days. My late school days and university years are warm in my memory thanks largely to Tank and what he helped me do, with good friends and special friends. I started courting the most beautiful girl in the school with Tank – Margaret Lomas. I wasn’t going to be fully happy until that name was Margaret Smith. I’m still fully happy that she did, and I can guarantee that she’s still the most beautiful girl Thornbridge School ever educated. What a looker – her age (60) – remains a secret.

Apparently the lagoon behind Chesil Bank is the biggest in NW Europe and a place of scientific interest as well as a World Nature site, or summat. Now yesterday I said it smells disgusting, like a sewer. A few people have been in touch to complain that I would regard someone who sews as disgustingly smelly. Particularly as these are likely to be women. OK, OK I know a lot of tailors are men but the bulk of sewers in the UK are women let’s be honest with each other. And I’m sure they don’t stink, it’s all been a big misunderstanding. I meant ‘like a knitter’.

Today started cloudy and I left Wilson on the site and walked down to the coast path and over the long bridge and causeway to the Isle of Portland. As I walked the clouds cleared and the usual blue sky surrounded the sun. Beautiful weather yet again. This is a view from the cliff top on the Island looking back at Weymouth, Chesil Bank and Lyme Bay to the left.

Walking down to Portland Bill, the southern point of the island, it became apparent that the whole Isle is just a quarry. Sir Christopher Wren loved Portland stone and had it shipped up to London by the hundreds of thousands of tons to build iconic structures like St Paul’s and many other churches after the great fire of London in 1666. You know Christopher Wren. Yes that one. Hunchback with a squint. The new London Bridge, the UN building in New York and government buildings in New Delhi are made from this stone. As a result the island is a little gold mine but a largely unattractive one.

I got to Portland Bill in the sun and was happy to walk back.

I’m looking forward to carrying on through East Dorset now. Only 42 miles to go, 588 done.
All knitters’ complaints will be dealt with at arm’s length and upwind.

Heard that somewhere before? Yes you have if you read my 13 September blog. Well that’s where I am, going for an early finish next week, so I got up at 7am and set off at 8. Pushing off from Burton Freshwater I quickly made it to the beach which forms part of the 20 plus miles of pebble bank formed of trillions of pebbles thrown up 6000 years ago from a change in sea level. It was ok for the first couple of miles and then the pebbles invaded the path. It was like wading through porridge, really strength sapping. I aimed for breakfast at West Bexington but the only cafe was shut and there are no shops.
The real plus factor was the weather. Yesssss!!! Again it was July but this time in October. Warm, sunny and clear.

Beautiful irises, or are they orchids, growing in the shingle.

I made it more than three hours after setting off to Abbotsbury and had a late breakfast of a huge pot of tea and crab sandwich with salad. Perfect! My spirits lifted instantly.
Above the village the Chapel of St Catherine towers majestically surrounded by earthworks. A few clouds blew over and I thought summer was finished but it soon cleared again. It was in the early twenties centigrade. Amazing.

I really enjoyed the cross country route of the coast path back down to Chesil Bank. The Bank runs between the open sea and a long open lagoon which opens at one end to Portland Bay, and which is mostly saltwater. It’s a haven for birds, particularly in winter when thousands turn up there. It smells disgusting, like a sewer. Drain the bloody stinky thing and fill it with concrete.
It looks nice in the sun though.

What the good weather has done is bring out millions of daddy longlegs. Don’t know what they’re called in French. Papa Jambes Longues or summat. As soon as I switch the lamp on in Wilson I’m covered in these things.

The slugs have buggered off and I’ve got daddy longlegs all over my head now.

I’m staying on this campsite tomorrow as well as tonight as the path goes round the Isle of Portland and comes back again. I can leave my rucksack in Wilson. Brilliant!
Here’s my good friend Wilson and the Isle of Portland behind in the evening sun.

I’ve done 18 miles today. I’m feeling as fit as a butcher’s dog. 573 miles done, 57 to go. I’m finishing on Wednesday and if I keep going I’ll get another day off in Swanage. Might go fishing or summat.
Sleep well family, friends and new friends I’ve not met yet but are reading this.
Night Night

Which means in Sheffield speak that we have to put up with the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune because a positive outcome is anticipated.
I made a mistake today and lost heart. I won’t do that again – losing heart. I’ll make mistakes whilst there’s breath in this mortal coil. Shakespeare’s featuring a bit tonight.
Anyway, I don’t think I thanked Ziva enough so thank you me old for putting me up at the time my body needed to walk without the rucksack. Even if I looked a pillock walking around with one of your black leather handbags over my shoulder.

I get statistics on the blog and over the last week I’ve had viewers from the UK, Germany, France, Bulgaria and Russia. Hello My Bulgarian and Russian friends whoever you are I love you! My UK, French and German friends don’t need me to tell them that I love them – they know.

It was another climbing day today but the Coast Path was detoured around again with collapsed cliffs. The first climb out of Charmouth was quite a view looking back with Charmouth in the foreground and Lyme Regis in the left distance.

However the main act was Golden Cap, the highest cliff on the South Coast, which was a sweat drawing, breath stealing, leg weakening climb to a 360 degree panorama. As usual the sun was out and beating down on my bent back. I’ll miss it when the weather turns.

Coming down off Golden Cap I walked into Seatown and decided to try the sea side route rather than over the cliffs, as the tide was going out. Big mistake. I spent nearly three hours jumping from one rock to another with my pack on my back, and where there was flat land it was full of pebbles, which made walking very tiring.

Bizarrely out of the billions of pebbles as I walked along my eye was drawn to one. ‘Stephen’ was somehow etched on one that was miles down the beach from anywhere that it might have originated. I didn’t lift it or try to establish how the wording was produced but just passed it wondering how.

I made it to Freshwater Beach Camping Park and set up Wilson, washed my clothes and did this blog. It’s nearly nine o’clock and I’m going for a fairly long hike tomorrow so I’ll say goodnight.

Night Night.

Yesterday morning I was up for an early start. There was a fair bit of interest in my mission, two guys on site were ex-forces and we had some good chats, and Mary who runs the site came round, gave me a tenner for H4H and we talked about her and her husband’s life as they are going to let the site go next year. Nice folk. I walked over to the Devon Cliffs Holiday Park where the Coast Path runs through and had breakfast in their big entertainment complex. Not great but I made two new friends.

I carried on to Budleigh Salterton, what an elegant village! The weather was overcast but as usual it cleared up and the sun shone later. The place was characterful and marks the border between South and East Devon. It has a pebble beach and someone had collected different coloured pebbles to make a really good collage on the beach. Cop these!

I was talking to another ex-services bloke, they come up when they see my T shirt, and he said that the village had the highest proportion of millionaires anywhere in the UK in the 70s and 80s. It also has some classy street artists.
I’m not sure if you can make out the partially submerged Mercedes.
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It was a long walk to Sidmouth. Every day carrying the rucksack I sweat like a pig and my clothes stink so I need to regularly do the launderette and to shower. That’s reduced my ability to camp rough as showers are nearly essential. It’s a side effect of the exceptional weather.

The rock formations get interesting and there are sandstone stacks en route.

I stopped in Sidmouth for a pint at the Radway Inn, at the bottom of a long steep hill to Salcombe Regis where my campsite was. I motored it and set up Wilson, had a shower and went to bed at 7pm. I’d done 15 miles and I was knackered.

I got up refreshed at 7am, showered again, packed away and got off by 8am.
I wanted to make Beer before breakfast – great name for a town! This is rural England at it’s best. A throwback. You expect Captain Mainwaring to march around the corner. Cows, peacocks and thatched cottages. A beautiful part of the country to walk through. It’d drive me bloody mad without a takeaway nearby!

I’d read about the blacksmith/farrier at Branscombe, one of the last remaining local forges, and was lucky enough to walk past as he was sparking up his forge. God bless the Smiths!

I made it to Beer before breakfast and broke it on the front with fantastic eggs benedict and limitless pots of tea for six quid. Breakfast and lunch – fantastic.
The next section was pretty tough and ends up in a seven mile path through a forested area below the cliffs from Seaton to Lyme Regis. This area is basically collapsed cliffs that keep on collapsing within themselves. I had only ventured a quarter of a mile into it when there was a warning that the path had collapsed and that entry was barred by a local council order and that Devon council suggested that walkers get a bus. I carried on and eventually came to a cordon. On this path the problem is that you can’t go up the cliff or down to the sea to get round problems. It’s a four hour journey on a single path and in this instance there were several collapses. I climbed over the cordon and came to the first drop of the path, about 10 feet but someone had tied a rope to a tree and tied knots in it so even with the rucksack I could get down it. There were four further collapses which I was able to climb up, down, up and down. The final collapse had another rope attached to a post at the top. It looked well enough tied and the rope was of good enough quality to haul myself up and climb over the cordon intended to stop others coming in the opposite direction.

The slog was hard. If the elves are anywhere in the south they’re here. The undergrowth is deep and there’s nobody about for miles.

Finally I made Lyme Regis and entered Dorset. I looked forward to seeing the Cobb, which we’d visited when we lived in Bristol in mid-winter with cold winds, atmosphere and the whole vista in black and white, including the French Lieutenant’s woman dressed in black and walking in mysterious ways. I turned the corner to the Cobb and could have wept. Mobile homes laced the surrounding area, crappy shops on the Cobb itself selling tat to morons and every inch filled with commercial cack. Lyme Regis – your town is worthless.

The tide was out so I was able to walk along the bottom of the cliffs to Charmouth, where I’ve pitched up for the night. Some great fossils on the beach on this world heritage Jurassic Coast.

The SWCP website reckons I’ve done 18 miles today.
I’ve done 547 miles in total – 83 to go!

Night
1. Porlock
2. Lynton
3. Hunters Inn
4. Coombe Martin
5. Woollacombe
6. Braunton
7. Bideford
8. Abbotsham
9. Hartland
10. Morwenstowe
11. Bude
12. Crackington Haven
13. Tintagel
14. Port Gaverne
15. Rock
16. Harlyn
17. Trevarrian
18. Perranporth
19. Portreath
20. Hayle
21. St Ives
22. Zennor
23. Cape Cornwall
24. Porthcurno
25. Penzance
26. Porthleven
27. Lizard Point
28. Coverack
29. Helford
30. Falmouth
31. Portloe
32. Pentewan
33. Par
34. Polruan
35. Looe
36. Whitsand Bay
37. Plymouth
38. Wembury
39. Mothecombe
40. Bigbury on Sea
41. Salcombe
42. Torcross
43. Dartmouth
44. Paignton
45. Teignmouth
46. Exmouth
47. Salcombe Regis
48. Charmouth

If you do then I know for sure ‘There’s something wrong with you, oh baby, baby, baby, what you doing in my hoose?’ Talking Heads’ seminal album Little Creatures when David Byrne was at his screeching best. Buy This Album! Buy The Incredible String Band’s Big Huge album. Don’t miss out, there is only one life my friends and don’t be fooled by religious dog(poo)ma, there is no heaven or hell. Enjoy the best the world has to offer now before we decompose. There won’t be a Dirty Pillock dropping us into placky bags and leaving us at the side of the path. We’ll just burn. Seize the time! Carpe Diem as Horace wrote two thousand years ago. Don’t drift and die peeps – do things. Yes we have to work but there is so much to do outside of that. Bringing up kids in a positive way. Developing ourselves to be able to appreciate the earth and its mysteries. I’m off on one. Sozza.

Made the First train to Teignmouth from Totnes. Ziva gave me a lift to the station. What a pleasant stay at her gaff, just at the right time when my limbs and joints were creaking. Breakfast in Teignmouth and then a fair hike, alongside the storm damaged rail and coastline up to Starcross.
I’m weighted upon. The rucksack is back! A relatively short run today, but still 10 miles. I need to hit 14 a day now, I’m not spiritually bound to this part of South Devon or to Dorset as I am to Cornwall. I’ll look forward to developing an appreciation.

Cloudy and cool this morning. As I walked alongside the rail line there were suddenly loads of people, waiting to see an old, but very fast, steam train. Here it is.

There is a ferry to Exmouth across the last of the English fjords, the river Exe, and I made it without any problems.

Some interesting views across. But when I got there the weather was back to the sunny best it has been for three weeks and more. Wow!

I’m scheduling my last trek days. I’ve climbed three times Everest plus one Ben Nevis over a trip equivalent to walking from London to Sheffield to London to Sheffield to Manchester, although why anyone would want to go to Manchester from Sheffield beats me.
I’m at a campsite under Wilson just outside Exmouth. It’s going to be a good few days to the finish, and beyond. Sithee.