Kermode.co.uk

We have just had three days staying at Salcombe Regis and have now completed the Jurassic Coast section of the South West Coastal Path. I will put more details of fours day’s walking now on the website.

Although all “legal” restrictions for Covid19 will be retracted on 19th July, it is clear that the Pandemic is far from over and there will be many “recommendations” from the government which will probably create more confusion. I don’t think that we can be sure that the situation is much better util after the winter – ie Spring 2022.

So for the time being at least we are likely to avoid crowded public spaces if possible and this will include public transport. We have also discovered a number of interesting villages on the much less crowded inland footpaths and so will continue to avoid public transport and as a result walk almost twice as far. So far we have walked 312 miles since September including 153 along the coast.

We have just had four days away and completed 5 walks, now having passed the Lyme Regis undercliff and got as far as Branscombe Mouth.

I have added the description of the walks, pictures and maps to the website.

Since the Covid regulations allowed campsites to open all facilities from 17th May, we had earlier booked a pitch for our VW at Highlands End near Eype. This is one of our favourite campsites.

We had two good days of walking and so completed the walk from Abbotsbury to the Campsite, but strong winds and heavy rain made the next part of the path, to Golden Cap, potentially dangerous so we (for the first time ever) left the campsite a day early and came home. Hopefully to continue in June.

Further details and pictures are now available on the website.

We have just come back from staying for 4 days at Osmingtom Mills and walked from Durdle Door to Abbotsbury in 5 days.

Lovely sunny weather but cold East wind at times – and interesting are with lots of contrast.

Full descriptions and pictures coming soon

New Forest, like lots of the country went into “Tier 4” on 30th December, only a few days after being placed in Tier 3. Unfortunately this means that we will be unable to continue around the coast until restrictions start to be lifted – I think this is more likely to be early summer, rather than the Spring that the Prime minister seems to be hoping for.

However we are at least able to walk from home to some nice places – the pictuure below id Keyhaven, where we walked today – 16.5km round trip.

With the new tiers that came into force on Boxing day, we are stuck where we live in the New Forest. To the East is Southampton and the rest of Hampshire, which is in Tier 4, so we can’t go there, and probably wouldn’t want to at present.

To the East, Dorset remains in Tier 2, so we are not allowed to go there – so we are stuck in the New Forest for the moment. Not a bad place to be stuck, but not useful for our Coastal Walk. We have already completed the part from home to the Dorset boundary at Chewton Bunny, which is not very far.

The remainder of the New Forest Coast to our East, has poor access for walkers, due to historic land-ownership and environmental designations, some of which have resulted from the lack of access and hence disturbance. This may change a little with the English Coastal Path but I think only marginally.

So unfortunately we are unable to progress until the Covid19 restrictions begin to be eased – it would be nice to think this could happen soon – but I think it is likely to be Easter before the effect of the vaccine allows significant easing of the restrictions.

No that the 2nd lockdown has finished, hopefully we can continue. So we have booked a static caravan at Swanage and can hopefully do the Range walks to Lulworth Cove – the weather is not looking great but hopefully it won’t be too bad.

More details when we have completed the next section

On Saturday 31st November Boris Johnson announced a four week lockdown for the whole of England. As this includes a ban on “non-essential travel” I’m afraid that this stops any real progress for our walk and although the lockdown is due to finish on 2nd December, at present this seems to me to be more hope than reality.

As the next section of the walk is the Lulworth ranges, our plan was to use our camper-van and spend two days over the weekend – we will have to wait and see whether this is a practical proposition in December or January.

On a more positive note the lockdown will mean I have a little more time to improve the website and we have discovered that the South West Coastal Path Association has some very nice Christmas cards – so we can write these rather than see the views>

22nd October

This looked like the last reasonably fine day before we loose an hour’s daylight at the end of the day and the next section of the walk, from Kimmerage to Lulworth, is complicated as it is only open when the Ranges are not being used. This is mainly at weekends – there is a website that gives details.

So we decided that it would be good to complete the route to Kimmeridge and then decide when to do the rather strenuous Range walks.

We parked at an old Quarry at Kimmeridge and walked along the ridge to our previous finishing point near Chapman’s Pool – then, due to showers and yesterday’s rain, a rather slippery walk, though with impressive views.

More information and photos on the website in a few days