Kimmeridge Bay to Swanage 21km
Ascension 627m Accumulated ascension 6614m

It rained heavily in the night and we heard a few bursts of thunder. At breakfast (eggs Benedict for a change) it was still steady drizzle. Our taxi was due at 9.30am and I would have liked to look at the vintage steam train station. I didn’t want to be soaking wet before we had even started walking for the day so waited in the hotel. Our taxi arrived exactly on time and at Barbara’s request we were taken to Kimmeridge Bay not back to Clavell’s Café. This saved us about a mile of repeating a walk we did yesterday. It took twenty minutes in the taxi to get to the bay and when we arrived the drizzle had stopped and it was clearing quite nicely.

Our Stratford upon Avon friends were at breakfast this morning. They now have names -Jane and Brian. They have done most of the Coast Path, just some sections to go and do in Cornwall. They are staying at The Bankes Arms in Corfe for a few days, using it as a base and using a taxi to go out and walk different sections. Yesterday they walked what we walked today. They were able to warn us of the mud.

The path out of the bay climbed gently and once past Clavell Tower (a folly built in 1830, now expensive accommodation) it became narrow, wedged between a barbed wire fence on our left and brambles and the cliff edge on our right. The rain of yesterday and the overnight rain had turned the dirt path to black, squelchy, slippery, sticky mud. The fence and the brambles meant there was no escape. We have never seen such sticky mud. It quickly formed a thick layer under your shoe so you were about 25mm taller and it clung to the perimeter of your shoe so it looked like you were wearing black clown’s shoes. On the mown grass sections it picked up straw and grass to bind it all together. It was very slow walking and we had to stop often to prise the muck off with our walking poles. We had about 3 km of this before the path steepened and became steps or more rocky.

This morning there were three massive, very steep, hamstring hammering and calf creaking climbs. The first Houns Tout Cliff, then Emmetts Hill and finally St Aldhelm’s Head. These were as steep as any we have seen anywhere on the Coast Path but they did give great views up and down the coast. All morning there was a very strong wind blowing, thankfully from the west so a tail wind for us. On some of the head winds it became a cross wind and we could hardly stand up. Fortunately the cross wind was blowing us inland away from the cliff edge.

At the top of St Aldhelm’s Head there was a beautiful little 800 year old stone chapel, dedicated of course to St Aldhelm. From the outside it looked a simple square building with some buttresses and a pyramid roof. Inside the roof was in fact formed with elaborate interconnected stone arched vaults. Absolutely amazing for such a small chapel. It was as if the chief mason working on one of the great cathedrals, York or Lincoln, had come down to the coast on his holidays and done a little private job for the local congregation. Also at the top of this hill was a monument to radar research, some coast guard houses and a coastguard hut. It took us 3 hours to get to this point about 8kms. We were pretty tired so stopped for a rest and some lunch.

After lunch we still had 13km to go but the steep cliffs were over. It was much gentler on a grass path, although it did take another 4 hours. This section of the path had many old abandoned quarries, a lighthouse at Anvil Point, a castle and a Great Globe at Durlston Head. The Globe was made in 1891 from Portland Stone and is one of the largest stone spheres in the world. It seemed to take forever but we got into Swanage about 5pm and after some shopping we arrived at our guest house at 5.30pm, the latest we have finished any day on this trip.

Tomorrow is our last day on the South West Coast Path and we should complete all 1003 km of it. Not sure how we will feel about it, we will find out tomorrow.