The South West Coast Path: West Bay to Abbotsbury
- 13 hours ago
- 4 min read
Despite being shattered from our walk between Lyme Regis and West Bay the day before, our night's sleep in West Bay was set to a symphony of sea gulls at all hours of the night so we woke up not really feeling that well rested. Nonetheless we were excited about the days walk to Abbotsbury, our next section of the South West Coast Path, knowing it involved far less hills than the day before. We wolfed down yet another incredible full English (now becoming expected from our mornings before walking) before setting off on our way. Unfortunately the first part of the walk was diverted due to risk of rock falls along the edge of the Bridport Sand cliffs so we took a slightly confusing route through a golf course and a caravan park to start out morning's walk before rejoining the coastal path. After that, the views of the red beach and blue sea below us was stunning as we walked and we were having a great time.
Then.... we hit Chesil beach. For anyone who hasn't studied Chesil beach in GCSE geography, its a huge shingle barrier beach in Dorset. A very cool landform indeed, it cuts off part of the sea behind it, forming a lagoon. As cool as it is to look at, the shingle, it turns out, is incredibly annoying to walk on. I did my DofE treks in the desert of Dubai and I thought that that had taught me how annoying it ws to walk on sand. That was nothing compared to this shingle. 45 minutes of trudging through the small rocks, making what felt like zero progress, and constantly discussing what the best technique was to get maximum push off, we decided to head slightly inland and walk through some fields instead. This was a 9/10 decision, only losing one point because we got caught in a field of cows that the farmer was trying to herd up and it was kinda scary there for a minute. There was also a point where we were walking along what we thought was a path and turned out to be a drystone wall in a very very over grown field so had to retrace out footsteps for a bit and try again which I wasn't overly thrilled out.
We then rejoined the beach and trudged some more until we came across a cute cafe called The Club House in West Bexington where we had the best thick chips ever (I was STARVING) and made the decision to walk inland across the South Dorset Ridgeway to Abbotsbury instead of along Chesil beach which is technically the route the South West Coast Path follows.
Following this path meant starting after lunch with a very steep climb up onto the ridgeway, this was in the heat of the day and was not really all that fun. When we were up on the ridge though the views were amazing and we were just relieved to no longer be walking on the shingle beach. We followed the ridgeway all the way to Abbotsbury, stopping in a lay-by on the side of the road when my mum spotted an ice cream van and we had, I kid you not, the BIGGEST Mr Whippy ice creams I have ever seen. Spurred on by some much needed sugar and ice cream filled joy we walked the rest of the way to Abbotsbury and checked into an inn for the final night of our little trip. The walk this day ended up being just under 16km taking around 4 hours including stops.
A wonderful warm shower later we headed down to have dinner in the pub we were staying at. Unfortunately none of us had clocked that it was a Sunday and we were in a small village. The pub it turned out had served Sunday lunch so was not serving dinner. The village shop was of course also closed and all of us were very very hungry, not a great situation to be in, especially ebcause it is well known that my mum and I suffer from hanger! Luckily though, it was the night of the England v Mexico World Cup match at 2am and the woman at the bar told us a pub a 10 min drive away was staying open to show the game so we headed there in the hopes that they were open for dinner as well. Thankfully we were in luck and were able to have a lovely dinner (I experience my first ham, egg, and chips which was really quite awesome) and a bottle of wine. I, having no interest in watching the football match (much to my father's disappointment, headed to bed and I think my parents stayed up to watch the game but honestly I'm not sure.
The geology of this leg of the walk was a lot less notable, mostly because we decided to walk inland along the ridgeway instead of along Chesil beach, a decision I definitely do not regret! We did pop to Chesil beach for a bit before dinner and I collected a lot of cool pebbles with some fun geology and we started the day with a view of the Bridport Sands which are some very cool looking sandstone cliffs which act as a reservoir rock for the oil in the Wessex Basin.
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