2 Studland Bay to New Swanage

Swanage Bay

   

Flushed with the thrill of Monday's impromptu start of walking the South West Coast Path, we decided to carry on. We parked at the Knoll Beach visitor centre and walked on down the sandy beach (Middle Beach) towards Redend Point, with Old Harry Rocks in sight beyond it.

When the beach ends, you climb a tarmac road and turn left into woodland. The views of the beach through the trees were delightful and - perhaps fancifully - reminded us of the Costa Brava, for example, a walk from Llafranc to Golfet.

Soon, we reached Fort Henry.

It was built in 1943 and is 90ft long with concrete walls 3ft thick. In April 1944, it was the vantage point from which King George VI (now famous for his stammer of course), Winston Churchill, Lord Mountbatten, and Generals Montgomery and Eisenhower watched Operation Smash, a rehearsal for the D-Day landings which took place a couple of months later.

We then walked along Studland's South Beach and then took the path along to Old Harry Rocks at Handfast Point. This involved retracing - in reverse - the wonderful Studland to Old Harry walk we did last October - on which we took some nice photos of the Rocks.

We carried on towards Ballard Point, with a nice view behind us.

 At Ballard Point we descended towards Swanage Bay - see the photo at the head of this post. At the outskirts of Swanage - New Swanage - the path heads inland through a housing development and at this point we followed a path back towards Ballard Down. This climbed steadily until it offered a lovely view of Ballard Down to the right, heading down towards Ballard Point, with the Isle of Wight faintly in view behind it.

Now we began steep, but mercifully diagonal, ascent of Ballard Down proper. After a short while a conveniently located bench offered magnificent views over Swanage. The Victorian pier, on the far side of the bay, was much more noticeable from this height.

We reached the ridge of Ballard Down at the point shown on the map as Stone Seat. Fair enough, there is an aged stone bench, complete with a graffito dated 1852. Poole Harbour can be seen in the background.

We carried on the same direction and followed a path which descended to reach the Norman church of St Nicholas in Studland. We admired the fine chancel arches in the interior.

From here, we headed past the Old Manor Hotel to regain the Coast Path and retrace the last bit of the way to Knoll Beach.

Conditions: cloudy, threat of rain.

Distance: 7 miles, of which 4 were on the Coast Path. Distance covered so far 6.5 miles.

Map: Explorer OL15 (Purbeck and South Dorset).

Rating: Four stars.

Sightings

A nice flock of Brent Geese off Middle Beach on the return leg.

 

Signs that winter is ending

Catkins on the way to Old Harry Rocks, Vinca in flower by a farmhouse on the way up to Ballard Down, snowdrops in St Nicholas church yard.

Reflections

It was great to be on Ballard Down again and be able to identify all the coastline back to South Haven Point. Of course you could study the map, but there is no better way to get to know an area than to extensively walk it. 

It was also satisfying to do a walk without reference to a walk book. Our dependence on walk books is partly laziness and partly because I am still not very good at calculating distances. Still, our planned approach to the Coast Path will require more of this, which is excellent.

1 South Haven Point to Studland Bay

 The start of the Coast Path

Since we acquired our base in Poole, we have been pondering when and how to tackle the South West Coast Path, which starts at South Haven Point - on the other side of the chain ferry from Sandbanks. For our previous efforts at long-distance paths we have either taken two cars or walked with friends, again using two cars. Today we had a new idea: perhaps we could cover the route by means of a series of circular walks. Obviously, only part of the route would progress the Coast Path, but it would avoid having to organise a taxi to get back to the start. We will follow our previous principles and do the walk in its correct sequence and walk each leg in the right direction.

At present, we see ourselves eventually reaching Weymouth, or perhaps Lyme, but we will see. There is no hurry.

We crossed the chain ferry and parked at the car park on the other side and stood to attention by the sign post to Minehead (630 miles) before striding off along the sandy beach of Shell Bay.

The tide was quite low and so it was possible to make rapid progress walking on the firm sand near the water's edge. At the end of the beach, we turned the corner and continued our progress along the straighter, and much longer, Studland Bay, passing the famous Naturist area without distraction.

We left the beach at the Knoll Beach visitor centre and headed inland to soon reach Godlingston Heath, where we passed to the east of the wonderful Agglestone, just touching the route of an earlier walk from Studland to Old Harry's Rocks. It was remarkably sandy on the heath, and in places walking was actually harder work than on the beach!

We then headed north to find and cross the road back to the chain ferry and enter the nature reserve that surrounds the lake known as the Little Sea - originally a sea water lagoon. The early evening view across towards Old Harry's Rocks was delightful, with a pinky tinge in the sky.

We followed the line of the road back to the deserted car park.

Conditions: dry, cloudy, some mud.

Distance: just under 6 miles, of which 2.5 was on the Coast Path.

From: 50 walks in Dorset (AA) - but done in reverse, from a different starting point, and with a bit cut off.

Map: Explorer OL15 (Purbeck and South Dorset)

Rating: four stars

Signs that winter is ending

The broom was starting to come into flower on the heath. Winter's dominion is beginning to wane.