Day 92: Westwards to Dartmoor

Today turned out to be a very long day. It dawned bright and clear which was a great sign for us, so we decided to get on the road early and cover as much of the UNESCO World Heritage site in Dorset as we could, despite missing a large amount of it yesterday. So we packed up the car and started driving around 9am.

First stop was about an hour away, the beautiful Lulworth Cove and the nearby Durdle Door. The cove was a very distinct crescent shape, and had very clear geological formations packed in - you could clearly see millions of years of geological history playing out around the cliffs above it. Hard stone from the Triassic era, folded angled strata from the Jurassic period when the collision between Africa and Europe caused the rocks to buckle and fold, and further around there was distinct cliffs of chalk - actually compressed tiny sea creatures fossilised over millions of years since the Cretaceous period.

Great views, and a good spot of hiking here, though quite a few people around due to the bright sunshine and warm (for England) weather. Nearby Durdle Door is a large arch formed from slate, and is again an interesting geological formation. You can really see how the power of waves and time turns small cracks in a cliff into caves, caves become archways, which eventually collapse into stacks, which eventually weather and collapse into the sea. Interesting to think about!

Back into the car where our westward coastal journey continued. Next stop was a large rock stack formation, but it was hidden away behind a caravan park which wanted a flat fee of 6 pounds to access. I laughed in the guy's face and we drove away.

A brief stop in a small village I can't remember the name of, where we bought a couple of Cornish pasties for lunch. Quite tasty, though very peppery and a bit odd when cold. Definitely needs to be heated up! We ate our pasties on a ridge overlooking the village and the nearby rolling hills - very bucolic and pretty.

Next stop was the town of Lyme Regis, where many important fossil discoveries had been made (including the large pliosaur skull we'd seen in the museum yesterday). One of the most famous fossil hunters, a woman named Mary Anning, hunted fossils here in the early 19th century to incredible success. We parked up and wandered down onto the beach, and although it was blustery, cloudy and cold here, there were still a few brave souls hanging around looking for fossils and dinosaur bones.

It's apparently fairly common here because the strata layers in the cliffs behind the beach continually get washed into the water, and the "surf" then washes the bones up along with the pebbles, boulders and other detritus. We didn't find anything, but it was approaching low tide so we did manage to find some large ammonite fossils (on the large rocks, obviously already known to science). Ammonites were large Jurassic sea creatures with spiral shells, and created very distinct fossil patterns. Cool to see!

After an hour or so of looking we headed back to the car, heading for our last stop at Sidmouth, the end of the line for the Jurassic Coast world heritage site. This was the red cliffs, but despite the the layers of strata visible it wasn't super interesting sadly - though the heavy rain didn't help matters!

Final leg of the drive was to our room in the small village of Highampton, where our Airbnb was in a former coach house. Very nice too! Settled in and relaxed for a bit, before heading to a pub in the adjacent village of Sheepwash for a great pub meal. Off to bed exhausted after a long day of driving and filming!Read more