Lulworth Cove to Kimmeridge

Day 11 Tuesday 10/09/2013

Lulworth Cove to Kimmeridge

Miles walked – 13
 

Today we couldn’t follow the coastal path as its shut during the week due to the firing ranges, apart from during the summer school holidays. After breakfast and packing up, we bought a sandwich and cake at the nearby little supermarket, and set off walking about 10. It was sunny at the start, but cooler. It was overcast at times during the day but stayed dry and became sunnier again later on.

The inland diversion route for the South West coast path was marked on our Harvey’s map, but there were no way marks on the ground. We found the path out of Lulworth, and climbed steeply through fields, but then couldn’t pick up the next path. In the end we headed back for the road, and an hour after setting off we were only one mile on from where we’d started. We therefore decided to follow the alternative road route for the next section, which went through woods and was quite pleasant, but hard on the feet and there was quite a bit of traffic. We could hear continuous firing and bombs going off round about. We found a bench at Holme, had our lunch there, then fortunately spotted a sign for a garden centre signposted just up the road, where we went for tea and scones.

 We then had another section of road walking before picking up an off road section. This seemed to go through a firing range and there were various military people about, so Colin asked someone and they said we were fine to go through. We passed through some woods, and saw a deer there, before reaching another road. We then went steeply uphill before picking up another path. This was a bit overgrown, then cleared and we could see the village of Kimmeridge below us. A gentle descent brought us into the village and we soon found our B&B, in a farmhouse. We had a very smart room and the landlady greeted us with a tray of tea and biscuits.

We went to the nearby café for tea at 7pm, called Clovellys, which was also owned by our B&B. This was a restaurant in the evening with about 10 other people in and specialised in serving local food, some from their own farm. I had a very nice seafood linguine and a glass of wine and we then shared a cheeseboard. The café didn’t stay open very late, so we bought two bottles of beer and took these back to the B&B.

Pub – Colvellys cafe