We spent a lovely final evening with them enjoying a gin in the backyard on a warm summer evening, & chatting with their neighbour again before repacking our bags ready for cycling to Sturminster Newton the next morning.
The next morning (Friday 2nd June) we made sandwiches, loaded up the bikes & bid our farewell. Hills Cycles of Amesbury did a wonderful job servicing our bikes; it was lovely to ride & know that the gears would work again as they were designed to do.
The route to Sturminster Newton took us through lovely little villages full of thatched houses and up a couple of bloody big hills, which I had to push up to get into Wilton & then Antsy. We were on the A30 for much of the way which luckily wasn’t too busy and, those drivers out & about, were generally pretty careful around us except for some road maintenance guy who came very close to knocking me off! Just out of Fovant we stopped to take photos of the regiment badges carved into the chalk hillside.
As we neared Antsy I found myself completely without energy – nothing in the tank – as my legs had gone but thankfully a farm shop & café was within view. There I partook of tea & a toasted teacake and felt much refreshed, enough to get us through Shaftesbury & down a wonderfully sweeping hill before turning off into Stour Row where we ate our sandwiches seated on a raised garden created by a resident who obviously takes pride in her village. We had a few spits of rain there but thankfully it came to nothing until just out of Hinton St Mary where we sheltered under a big tree until it passed over. We arrived in Sturminster Newton around 3pm passing a few small factories & new housing on the outskirts. Found May (95) & Myra’s (75) Hanover retirement units easily enough using Google maps & were welcomed in just as the rain came down again.
Myra had booked the guest unit for 3 nights so we settled ourselves in, showered and then caught up with the two of them before heading off to one of the local pubs for a meal – great vege options offered so rather ate too much.
On Saturday morning while Caroline attended to the washing, I spent some time down at the Post Office sending home the bits & pieces I’d picked up along the way as well as posting a book to Rosa in Porto. Should have made the bag a bit lighter! That done I bought The Guardian weekend then checked out the wee local farmers’ market where I chatted to an artisan chocolate roaster (Bob) who makes micro batches of fine chocolate – a very passionate chap & proud of the awards Solkiki has picked up in recent years. Bought 4 bars of VERY delicious chocolate! At the market there was also a woman promoting organic food bags – locally grown produce with recipes & accompanying sauces etc – as well a couple of artisan bread makers, a cheese man, a woman who made dairy & gluten free cakes plus a couple of other stalls I didn’t take too much notice of.
Sturminster Newton seems to be a village in two halves – the old & the new. The old village is the one Thomas Hardy would have known & walked around (he lived there for a short while & based the pub in Tess on the White Hart pub where we had a meal) of small cottages, some thatched, in narrow twisting lanes whilst the new is made up of standardised housing units in neat rows. The new shopping area is made up of a large supermarket & a big barn-like ‘have everything’ store; such a contrast to the small shops of the old high street. Next to the supermarket is the community centre where a beer & cider festival was being held – I tried a local cloudy cider (not to my liking) & listened to a local muso do a fairly good rendition of Meatloaf’s Bat out of Hell. The festival had a good ambience at that stage but according to Myra tends to get a bit more rowdy as the evening wears on!
I made the ratatouille in Myra’s kitchen & took it across to May’s unit where we enjoyed an evening of chat & playing with the cat. Had a much better sleep than the previous night.
Sunday saw us get up late & enjoy a leisurely read of the paper (quite a bit in it about the snap election) before Caroline found out about the London Bridge attack via her phone. So random and totally senseless – one can’t imagine what goes through the heads of people who plan & carry out such callous acts. In Sturminster such events seem very remote but I imagine that they do impact on the political thinking, and voting choices, of rural England.
Anyway, Sunday is the day May & Myra go to the pub for a roast meal but before that we went for a walk to the recreation ground so I could see where Thomas Hardy once lived. Caroline & May sat down while I continued down a muddy track to the Stour river for a shouffty – all a bit overgrown & damp – and by the time I returned Myra had joined us so we made our way to the pub for the 12 noon sitting. It turned out it wasn’t busy for once as the local Rotary had a family fun-day & BBQ on the common, and the beer/cider festival was still on. For the vegos the pub had a chestnut & parsnip roast with potatoes & vegetables followed by dessert for 12GBP. Yummy, but felt the need for afternoon nap afterwards! That evening we ate fried egg on toast at May’s & chatted; Caroline thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to catch up with them both as she lived with them when in the UK in the 1980s.
Woke on Monday to rain but we were determined to continue our journey south. We bid farewell to May & Myra by about 9.30am, picked up some food from the local bakery then headed out of town through Hazelbury Bryan, Mappowder, Plush, Piddletrenthide, Piddlehinton before cruising up into Dorechester’s main shopping centre. As you may note, I love the names of these villages, each linked by narrow (often rutted) lanes guarded by high hedgerows – thankfully drivers seem cautious on them. After a sharp descent from Plush we called in at The Poachers Inn in Piddletrenthide for a warming cuppa & got very friendly service. The rain lightened as we entered Dorchester but the dull day didn’t help the look of the town though it was busy with shoppers & tourists on the Thomas Hardy route (an example). Myra had advised us to look for a café down a side street so we did just that & found one to our liking - 'Walnut Grove', a very busy place that produced delicious soups (carrot & cumin; cauliflower & stilton; highly recommended) and marvellous cakes (coffee & walnut, Devon apple). We spent over an hour there sheltering from the rain but in the end had to continue on to our bed for the night at the Litton Cheney YHA via a bloody great climb to the Hardy Monument (as in ‘Kiss me Hardy”), down through Little & Long Bredy before our final hill into Litton Cheney. We arrived soaked to the skin & thankful of a great drying room at the hostel.
A group of 1st year students from Exeter Uni were staying – a bit noisy but thankfully located at other end of the hostel. We didn’t have much food with us but I managed to concoct something from the aubergine, tomatoes, vege stock & rolls we had with us. We shared a room with a 75yo artist and spent a lovely evening chatting politics with her & the volunteer wardens from Birmingham.
The next morning was dry but cool - our destination the YHA at Beer a mere 34 miles away! Ha! I need to remember to factor in the hills – we were spoilt in France cycling the EV6 …… so flat! We had plenty of stops along the way, of course, so it took from 9.30am until 7pm to get to Beer!
We dropped down to Burton Bradstock (quite a steep sweeping hill down into the town) but then decided to take the hill up to the viewpoint rather than turn down to the beach. The lookout to one side is privately owned by the café whilst to the west it’s run by National Trust – stunning views along a cliffed coast & sandy beach. A smooth climb out before truing down to West Bay where we stopped to look at the cliffs (an environmental team discussing the outfall) then, to avoid a passing squall, we sat at a café with a cuppa & bread pudding (very tasty). On into Bridport passing a number of caravan holiday parks with the biggest being at Charmouth. There we stopped again but this time to look at the museum of fossils found along this Jurassic coast (well worth a visit) & to take a walk under the cliffs. Also had a cuppa & some hot chips as a cool wind had got up & dark clouds kept threatening rain.
At Lyme Regis we checked out the tourist information centre and wandered along the stone sea wall, marvelling at their ongoing battle to maintain the boardwalk. Climate change & sea level rise are definitely having a noted impact on these coastal towns with local councils spending millions to save them. It was a steep climb out of Lyme Regis, up through their main street where Caroline stopped for some local fudge while I looked at the wonderful old bookshops. I decided that given the traffic on the A3052 I wouldn’t attempt cycling up the hill – should have done the hill training at home Caroline had done as she took it slow & steady. At Rousdon we turned off onto a small road winding steeply down to Axmouth (a pretty wee village with a stream running through it into the Ax River), across the bridge over the wide river mouth into Seaton where we stopped for groceries before heading onto the YHA at Beer. And, bugger me, as we swept into Beer we had yet another hill to tackle before we could call it a day BUT, WAIT …. what a surprise the hostel had in store – a 1:5 push with a hairpin bend to get to the front door. Caroline had to come back down to help me push the tank up!
The hostel was busy with tourists from Germany, Switzerland and other parts of England. We showered, cooked our dinner which I washed down with a lovely Irish cider, before spending the rest of the evening working on our diaries & planning next steps.
The next morning dawned fine for our ride to Exeter. The first very pretty hillside town was Branscombe which we descended into then gradually climbed out of along Street passing Doreen’s garden, a colourful hillside retreat, which is open for all to visit. Many of the houses are thatched (some even being thatched by ‘Master Thatchers’ as we passed through) & cutely named, reflecting the nature in the area. One thing I’ve noticed is that the villages seem more alive than many of the quiet French villages we passed through and the countryside seems populated with hardy walkers.
Between Salcombe Regis & Sidmouth we stopped to look at the donkeys in the sanctuary – loved the brown-eyed ones and Ashley who May & Myra support – before heading down to Sidmouth where cars needed to drive through a ford to get to the town. Here again there were information boards explaining the flood & sea wall protection measures being put in place. The town looked quite festive with bunting & Union Jacks all up the main street. Lots of people out shopping or strolling on the promenade. We had our lunch there at a lovely café right on the strand -Mocha Cafe - two leek & potato soups with crusty bread, & shared coffee & walnut cake. Delicious.
The siting for the town is quite spectacular but that did mean another bloody great hill climb to get out of it. Stopped about half way up to take a quick look at the Connaught Gardens then continued upwards pushing (Caroline cycled up, parked bike, then would come back to help me push!). At the top we turned off on to country lanes through Otterton down to Budleigh Salterton just as school was coming out then onto a greenway which was an old rail line. By that stage of the day we were just trying to get to Exeter as the clouds were threatening rain again. Got a bit lost around Exmouth trying to find the dedicated cycle path through Lympstone & Topsham into the city but when we did it was worth it as it followed both the estuary edge and the rain line, much of it a wooden platform above the marsh. Lots of people walking & cycling along it – obviously a popular commuting route, too.
Once at Exeter St David’s Station we checked to see whether the Warmshowers person we had contacted had responded – no – so we used lastminute.com to see what was available. Found a lovely B&B on the hill just above the station so booked in & enjoyed a very comfortable night at Oakcliffe Hotel. Met a NZ woman from Palmerston North there!
Wandered around Exeter Cathedral & Close for a bit before heading back to a vegetarian restaurant [Herbies] we had seen, where we ate a very filling meal – a satay and a Mediterranean platter……. Strangely no room for a dessert! Left enough room for the full English breakfast (V) the next morning! From there we scooted down to the station in the pouring rain to catch our 9.33 train to Penzance.
As an aside – everywhere we have noticed just how many very healthy ti kouka (cabbage trees) are growing in this part of England. Also quite a bit of harakeke (flax) …. both looks quite at home alongside the stone walls.
N.B. most of the photos I too during these days are on my digital camera so not downloaded yet.
No comments:
Post a Comment