Day 9: Beer to Lyme Regis
Only four fronted up for what we have decided is to be our last day of walking. While today was marked ‘Moderate to strenuous’, and tomorrow ‘moderate to hard’, half of us felt that the bus was more inviting; and the idea of belting along the Jurassic cliffs in time to catch one of the few buses from Seatown to Dorchester wasn’t inviting, particularly as we would miss the chance to wander around Lyme Regis. So off Ben, Al, Paula and I went along the Path, one last time.
The others bused to Lyme, while we started off along the path to Seaton, which proved to be larger and a bit more commercial than anything since Exmouth. One can judge the importance of a town by the size of its Tesco, and this was a monster! However, we were able to get some lunch, as we didn’t think we would be in Lyme Regis until about 2:30 in the afternoon. The first part of the Path led past the old harbour and then straight up the first hill, along the golf course and out onto the cliff fields.
The countryside soon changed: this area has a history of landslips and cliff-falls. The most dramatic is the Undercliff, where a series of slips have created a wilderness area that has always been too unstable to habitation of cultivation, so its now a wilderness reserve; but first we had to get through Goat Island, where a whole area slipped, fields and all, in 1839. Amazingly, the crops weren’t lost and were harvested next autumn and into the next decade. It forms a step into the woods of the Undercliff, where we walked for the next two hours. After the brilliant primary colours of the last few days, it was like walking in a green tunnel at times.
The maps all show the path as relatively straight, but at ground zero that wasn’t the case. The area is still subject to landslides, so the path is regularly remade and we went up and over these huge earthen humps. We knew the sea was there, and there were the occasional steep paths down to beaches, but we were really stuck on the path for the duration.
The Path only emerges from the Undercliff near Pinhay, just before the town. We walked down Pound Street and arrived at Lyme Townhouse in good order. The others had arrived before us and we settled in to very comfortable rooms. Beds and showers and beer: that’s what warms the hearts of walkers.
Dinner was going to be very simple — Lyme is 100% tourist and has been so for decades, and it was still half-term — so we weren’t after a Michelin meal. The nicer pubs were very crowded, so we grabbed some nibbles and drinks and made a mess, which we later cleaned up, in the common room downstairs.
The others had a nice day as well, as the slideshow demonstrates.
It was nice to have a few hours in the town, and to know that tomorrow we could have a proper look and some serious shopping for gifts. Mary Anning is very much in evidence: she seemed to have been discovered since we were last here, even before the film (Ammonite) came out.
