Beach walk

As the weather forecast was for the weather to close in this afternoon with high winds and rain again, we managed to get up and out relatively early (by our holiday standards) for a walk along the beach from Lyme Regis to Charmouth. This is only possible at low tide. Although there was a stiff breeze it was behind us on the way there. Much of the beach was stony or rocky with sandy interludes so required a degree of concentration to pick our way along. There were a good number of people braving the beach, many equipped with hammers and bags clearly looking for fossils. As we were keen to get to Charmouth and back before the rain came, we didn’t spend too long looking for any ourselves, but I enjoyed finding lots of pieces of sea glass in pretty colours. I also found several ammonites visible in rocks, none of which John was prepared to carry back for me 😠.
We reached Charmouth beach where, you guessed it, the river Char opened out into the sea. There is a wooden bridge over the river and a tiny cafe in a converted container where we were able to get a coffee, but the wind prevented it from being entirely enjoyable to sit and drink it on the beach.
We decided as the skies were getting increasingly grey to walk back along the beach, rather than over the cliffs, feeling that if it started to rain, the walk along the cliff top into the wind would be distinctly unpleasant, whereas the cliffs afforded a little protection at least in some areas.
We were very lucky and got back into Lyme Regis dry. The town was quite busy again. We stopped to buy an OS map and a couple of bits of food and made it back to the annexe about half an hour before the wind picked up even further and the rain started.
We cooked up a belated “brunch” type meal and whiled away the afternoon reading, dozing (ok that was me), listening to the radio and looking out at the wind and rain.Read more