Rambling Pete's Journal

 

A jolly jaunt along the Jurassic Coast path

Date: 22nd June 2008.
Map: Landranger 194 and 195 (view route in new window)
Weather: Bright sunshine all day, with a very strong sea-breeze.

A walk along the south west coastal path from Osmington Mills to the Square and Compass at Worth Matravers: 18 miles – as measured with my I-Pod headphones (18.5 miles on the map)…39750 steps.

After a wet start to a week break in Dorset, the day dawned bright and sunny. The forecast was for fine weather all day so I set off for the start with plenty of fluid in my pack. I was looking forward to this walk as it takes in some famous coastal features and some unique geological strata. I was lucky enough to have my daughter available to give me a lift back to the car at the end of the day, so I parked up at Osmington Mills near Weymouth, at the side of the road. The start of the walk passed by the side of the Smugglers Inn, a fine eating place in the evening, with good food and good service.

The Smugglers Inn

The start, looking back towards Weymouth

White Nothe from Ringstead Bay

It was lovely being out in the bright sunshine and the only mistake I made today was not slapping on enough sun cream on my legs, arms and neck! The next day I was a little tender in places – factor 50 would have been a good solution. I didn’t really notice the burning due to the strong cooling breeze, another Homer Simpson moment. The path gently ascended the cliffs and I had a good view of Ringstead village and the bay. The wind surfers were bombing along on the wind, really leaning into it and flying over the waves. The higher ground above Ringstead Bay is called Burning Cliff, named due to a spontaneous fire in 1826 – it must have been a puzzle at the time. The fire was supposed to have been started by heat generated by the decomposition of pyrite, a common constituent of the bituminous shale - you can find iron pyrite nodules on the beach at Charmouth. But the site of the burning has long ago been covered by vegetation and I had far enough to travel without a diversion at the start of the day. I passed by the big landslips (a common feature of this coastline) where the chalk had slumped down over the underlying shale - you can see cracks developing for future landslips. I looked back periodically to get views back to Weymouth and the Isle of Portland, the sea sparkling blue against the white chalk cliffs – very refreshing in the sea breeze.

Burning Cliff above Ringstead Bay

Towards White Nothe

The roller coaster path ahead

This walk made a nice contrast to the mountains of the Lake District I had been walking in the last few months. Any ideas that I was in for an easy day were soon dispelled as I reached the top of the White Nothe cliffs. The views opened up ahead of me to the east, and the landscape looked like a roller coaster up and down the grass slopes. Some of them were quite steep in places, so much so that the grass had eroded down to a series of steps which made the ascents a little easier. The sea colour next to these cliffs takes on a whitish hue due to the washing away of the soft chalk, which will inevitably lead to more landslips as the cliffs become undercut. Further along the coast as the geology changes, the sea becomes greyer due to the claystones and shales. I didn’t see too many seabirds today - the only ones were common gulls soaring above the cliff tops on the strong winds. These massive cliffs must have been lovely rolling hills before the English Channel was formed, and there are signs (lumps, bumps and barrows) of ancient occupation all along the coast. Old field systems can be seen in places, and they are marked as Strip Lynchets on the OS map. There is a triangular beacon along the path just before the views of Durdle Door and Lulworth come into view, and shortly afterwards a delightful marker stone with directions for Lulworth, Durdle Door and the Warren….and the stone mason made sure that there was room for Scratchy Bottom!!

Ooh a little bit lower…

The view from the top to the east

Looking back to the White Nothe cliffs – a strong summer light

Durdle Door comes into view

I love the old names that our ancestors gave to places, and they are very apt at times. If you get hold of any OS map of any part of Britain I’m sure you could find some comedy names in a quick glance of the map – e.g. the River Piddle is a little north of the coast, but don’t take a drink from it. After a bit more of the switchback walk, the famous Durdle Door comes into full view, along with a lot of holidaymakers visiting the ‘honeypot’ site of Lulworth. The crowds were not too bad today and knowing that most don’t venture more than a 100m from the car park, I wasn’t too bothered. There was a good mix of sunbathers and geology\geography students on the beach below – some laid out taking the rays, alongside the hard hats of the students! I didn’t walk down to the beach as I had a good enough view from the cliff top path. I passed through the big car park and bought an overpriced ice cream cornet – it was very welcome though.

If the path goes down…you know its back up the other side..

Closer to Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove

The tourist path down to Durdle Door

Lulworth Cove and the big car park

The cove – a safe haven for the lone fishing boat

When I reached Lulworth Cove at the end of the road I had the choice of walking along the beach or up behind the cove. So I made my way up a side path and gained height and a good overview of the cove. The cove is probably the best training location in the world for geology students. There are excellent exposures of folded Jurassic and Cretaceous strata and on the cliffs to the east is the Fossil Forest with an ancient soil and tree remains. There are glauconitic sandstones, sponge chert, cyclical Chalk, oil sands, lignite, ostracods, stromatolites, crocodile and fish teeth, an oyster bed, a transgressive marine pebble bed, a fluvial channel conglomerate, phosphatic strata, carbonate breccias, charophyte limestones etc. etc. The Lower Cretaceous, Purbeck Formation is contorted into the Lulworth Crumples at Stair Hole and the spectacular coast around here has caves, natural arches, sea-stacks and high cliffs of nearly-vertical Chalk. It can be studied at all levels from beginner level with basic geomorphology, to inversion tectonics and isotope geochemistry and spectral gamma ray logging. Did you take all that in? Good – I’ll carry on with the walk now. I didn’t visit Stair Hole where you can see all the folded strata, but I did stop to look at the fossil forest just beyond the cove. The cove was formed when the sea breached the harder Portland Limestone and then eroded away the softer claystones behind forming the horseshoe cove – it is a lovely spot though and it is no surprise that so many people come here. The fossil forest lies within the army firing range, so it is only accessible at weekends or at certain times of the year. The actual forest is a mould of the trees that once grew here 135 million years ago, and you can also see the ancient soils below. Looking at the picture you’d have to say it was a bad case of pre-historic piles!

Walking down the east side of the cove towards the firing range walk

Looking over to the west side of the cove

The fossil forest – the round bits are the moulds of the ancient trees

The path ahead was now within the firing ranges and you are meant to stay within the yellow marker posts to be safe. I saw plenty of sheep wandering around outside of these posts but none exploded – instant roast lamb I suppose. The walk was along an easy grass path for a mile or so to Mupe Rocks, where I turned left and had to ascend the huge chalk cliff above Mupe Bay. Looking up I could see a large fissure in the chalk, which extends down the cliff side for some distance. I think the path will need some diversion soon. The walk up was hot work and there wasn’t a lot of room to the right, it felt very airy with the strong wind blowing. Fortunately for me it was coming from the SW and effectively blowing me onto dry land as opposed to the void on my right. But up on top the views over the tank ranges were worth the effort.

The view from Mupe Rocks

More cliffs to walk up the side – nice and steep for a change!!

The biggest crack I’ve seen for a while

Looking down to Mupe Rocks

…and now you’re at the top…back down again..

A lovely spot for lunch

There is a large barracks at Lulworth Camp and further around is East Lulworth with its fine castle. In between the ground is littered with old tanks and other vehicles – some looking the worse for wear. After gaining all the high ground I dropped down once more to a small bay at Arish Mell, which had a nice picnic bench for a well earned lunch break. I had a good slug of juice to re-hydrate myself and a pleasant break in peace and quiet, away from the crowds at Lulworth Cove. I creaked into action once more and unsurprisingly had another stiff climb up to the top of Rings Hill – probably named after the earthworks at the top, where Flowers Barrow is sited. This is a hillfort with a limited future. The south side is falling into the sea at Worbarrow Bay, with perhaps even half of it having already disappeared. The pair of parallel ramparts are clearly visible on the north, east and west sides. It is possible there never were ramparts on the south side, with the cliff top acting as defence, not a place to wander out of your hut drunk on the local brew! There are wonderful views from here down over Warbarrow Bay and further away to Kimmeridge.

Back towards Mupe Bay

On the top at Flower’s Barrow hill fort

Looking down to Warbarrow Bay

..and looking back across the bay

Once more the path drops steeply down the side of a hill to Warbarrow Bay, with the abandoned village of Tyneham a little way along the valley - The deserted Purbeck village at the centre of the 7,500 acres used by the Army as a firing range. The village was evacuated in 1943, and no one has lived there since. I walked on, a bit tired now, probably too much ozone, and climbed once more along Gad Cliff above Brandy Bay – make mine a large one please! As I reached Tyneham Cap I had the choice of staying up high on the ridge or dropping down to the coast around to Kimmeridge Bay. I chose the easy option as I’d had enough drops today and didn’t want to go anywhere near an Oil well! I had good views across to the Kimmeridge Tower (Clavells Folly) - it was only 4 metres away from the crumbling, unstable cliff edge, and was also in a very poor state of repair, being a case of whether it would fall down on its own, or fall over the cliff edge first. But it was taken apart stone by stone and moved back by 25m, which should make it last a few more years, there was a digger standing around so presumably they are still working on the site. The BP Kimmeridge wellsite with its slowly ‘nodding donkey’ keeps pumping out the black stuff – I’m not sure how many barrels of oil a day it produces, but with the price of oil today it paid for itself a long time ago.

Still a long way down to the shore

Kimmeridge Bay ahead..

The Kimmeridge Tower

Along the ridge above Kimmeridge

The Kimmeridge ledges produce strange wave patterns

The BP wellsite – nodding donkey in the middle

Up on the ridge towards Kimmeridge

I stayed up on the limestone ridge for a couple of miles before arriving at the village of Kimmeridge, and then following a private road down past Smedmore House and Swalland farm. This route dropped me back down towards the coastal path, reached by passing through golden fields of wheat that swayed and swished in the strong winds. I reached the coast path again just above Rope Lake Head – I couldn’t see any lake or indeed any rope, although I was reaching the end of mine. Here the Kimmeridge ledges were prominent, and they are made up of a hard band of Dolomite that resists erosion by the sea. The waves form some strange patterns as the sea flows over the ledges in different directions. The sea here is also a lot greyer as the shales wash out from the cliffs. The oil shales here have seen a few fires over the years, the last one in 2000 I believe – all naturally occurring phenomena.

Lovely contrasting colours

Looking down on the claystone cliffs and the ledges I was getting very tired now from all the ups and downs of the day and worked my way around to Eldon Seat to be met by a rather large flock of crows. They were waiting on the path for me – a bit like the crows in Father Ted or Hitchcock’s ‘The Birds’. But I told them all to fly orf, and they did! It was slower going here as the path is less well trodden and overgrown in places, but still a delight to walk along. There was one last stiff climb of the day up Houns-tout Cliff – a bit close to the edge at times, before dropping steeply down to Chapmans Pool a narrow cove of murky looking water – full of washed out clays.

What would Father Jack say?.......off crows, drink, a^$e

Alfred…come and look at this..

Beautiful in the late afternoon sun

One more climb from here

The view from the top of Houns-tout cliff

A last look back along the coast path

Over the top and down to the bay

The muddy waters of Chapmans Pool

The village pond at Worth Matravers

I crossed a narrow valley and walked up the valley side to top the hill. All that was left to me was a slow easy walk across the fields and lanes to the pub in the lovely village of Worth Matravers – The Square and Compass – full of stone tables in the garden. Waiting here were Olivia and Scott and a fine pint of cider which didn’t touch the sides as it disappeared. What a wonderful day – calves like a Tandoori chicken – slowly done to a turn over 8hrs – but not as tasty. Walking, just brilliant.    

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