DORSET: FAST Days by the SEASIDE

I'm currently in Avebury after a much needed 10 hour sleep. I've found a spare hour to post about the weekend before it slips out of mind. 

Myself, Nick and Anita cannot seem to have a slow day. It became important because Nick had injured his foot, and there was a need to take things at a less demanding pace, so we didn't want a repeat of the epic step count we racked up on the Saturday. Was the Sunday any slower? Yes, but only a bit. Nick and Anita drove around Portland by car, searching in the old stone quarries for rare migrant butterflies. You wouldn't think butterflies would hang around in a stone quarry but apparently they love them, and Portland is where may migrant species come ashore from the English Channel. 

I walked all the way round Portland, which sounds impressive but actually it's not a big island. It would have been a fairy easy stroll, were it not for my habit of chasing up every detour - quarries, barrows, mesolithic field systems and village remains, a ruined church, a bird-watching centre, a hidden cove, two pubs, and a castle. I was quite hot and tired by the time I got to the castle, when Anita texted to say they were nearby. I saw the pair of them with my camera zoom, walking / limping along the rocky foreshore below the castle in butterfly-spotting pose. Despite all the driving they had in fact managed to rack up a decent walking day, because the place was too interesting not to have a good look around. 

The next day, we went out by car to have a 'quick look' at the Chesil Strand Lagoon and Estuary, which again took more walking then we imagined, and yielded an expectedly large number Brown Wall butterflies, which is apparently quite a thing. More driving through western Dorset got up to the Nine Stone Circle, which was certainly the most disappointing of the archaeological sites seen thus far. The circle, not a very impressive one, was literally right next to an A Road and there was a constant stream of traffic. Two ageing hippies were doing some sort of healing ritual in the middle of the circle, which seemed to involve touching each stone in counterclockwise order and then lying the middle face down with their legs pointing to it. We ruined the vibe by photobombing each others pictures and then left. Another mile racked up on what was supposed to be a walk free day. Yep, even though it's right next to the road you still have to walk half a mile along the permissive path in order to get to it. England can be like that. 

A quick car trip to Black Down Stone Circle (a modern one) in the Dorset National Landscape was supposed to provide an opportunity to sit and watch butterflies near to the car, but instead we turned into a 3-mile walk through heath and woodland, the most beautiful I have seen thus far. We spent much of the walk on what we believed to be a 'lynchet', which is a medieval strip field cut into the side of a hill. All day, strange lumps and bumps had been appearing in the landscape, the remains of Bronze and Iron Age civilisations that had flourished here in the chalk-land downs. The centre of the Iron Age tribe, the Durotriges, was at Maiden Castle, the largest hill-fort in Britain and one of the the biggest in Europe. Google Maps was taking us right past it to get home, and  myself and Nick saw it briefly out the window, but Anita wasn't satisfied, as she was driving and hadn't seen it. She pulled over in a small lay-by and we stuck out heads over a fence, to find a row of three smaller barrows (Gould's Barrows) were in the field just in front of us. Maiden Castle was arrayed gloriously in the distance. Nick jumped the fence and we all followed suit. It was a highlight of the day, and trip, to see the huge old fort from a distance in the landscape. I'd been there once before and climbed the thing, but you actually get a batter sense of it from afar, with a zoom lens. 

Back in the car and we were home, after a stop in Weymouth to buy turbot for my fish linguine. Weymouth is a silly, garish, drunken place, a poor man's Bournemouth, and I'm not saying anything against poor people, just the seaside towns that were developed  for their holidays.

​After dinner, back in Portland, we attempted a game of skittles at a nearby pub, but the darts tournament was on and the vibe was very unfriendly, so we went back home and drank, somewhat to excess, before crashing out about 10pm. That was our 'rest day.'

Yesterday, Nick and Anita drive me up to Avebury via Alner's Gorse Butterfly reserve, and we also had a quick look at the Cerne Abbas giant, he of the giant penis, but unfortunately he was looking very sad and unloved in the brown grass of a prolonged drought. They left me in Avebury and I soaked up the circle and nearby sites for 4 hours, before eating an enormous meal at the famous Red Lion. It was another night where I crashed as soon as I got into bed. 

Pictures of all that to follow. I have to go and get my complimentary Full English...​