Start of the South West Coastal Path

We have now completed the “Home” section of the coast from Lymington to Sandbanks.

The next part is the South West Coastal Path, which runs from Minehead in Somerset to Studland in Dorset. We will be starting at Studland and heading in the reverse direction, clockwise.

The South West Coastal Path Association publishes a guide to the path and divides it into 70 sections that are suggested for hay or half-day walks, but they are designed assuming public transport is available, so we won’t be sticking to them strictly.

Assuming we manage to do one section a week, on average, we should get to Minehead in the spring of 2022 – I think that is a realistic date for Covid19 restrictions to be over – but we will have to wait and see.

As we go West we will inevitably be getting further from home, and so need to stay away – so we have booked a campsite in Swanage for two days next week to stay in our camper-van.

I’ll put more on the Blog then

Walks on website

Description of all walks is now available on the Website

1st October 2020 – Bournemouth to Sandbanks

Today we completed the walk from home to the start of the South West Coastal Path by walking from Bournemouth Pier to the Sandbanks ferry.

I will write a full description in a few days and publish when I get time and a better understanding of WordPress.

Hengisbury to Bournemouth

  1. Hengisbury Ferry to Bournemouth Pier

Although the day started sunny, it was getting more cloudy all day. Today we started later than usual as we had an appointment in Mudeford at midday so parked at Southborne and then walked across the grass and along the Noddy train route to the beach huts on the Hengisbury spit.

These are some of the most expensive beach huts in England, and probably the World. The most expensive have double aspect, being able to see Christchurch Harbour on one side and the Channel on the other.

We started at the landing stage where the ferry comes from Mudeford Quay and walked back along the beach and then up to Hengisbury Head, for good views of the spit and Christchurch Harbour. Back past the car to check that there were no parking restrictions and then along the promenade. Not the most interesting promenade, though an interesting selection of Beach Huts, starting with numbers over 1000 near Southborne.

Past one beach lift, though not currently working and then to Boscombe Pier – the first Pier on this trip. Walking to the end of the Pier, the crazy golf being closed, presumably due to Corona virus restrictions, but from the end there was a better view of five Cruise ships anchored off Old Harry rocks.

Boscombe has been redeveloped about ten years ago, following a rather unsuccessful attempt to build a Surf Reef, but was a strange mixture today with some of the bars open, but not many shops.

It’s a little over a mile between Boscombe Pier and it’ bigger brother, Bournemouth Pier – not as elegant but no doubt more commercially successful in normal times.  The area around the pier entrance has been redeveloped and was quite busy.

Having completed the walk along the promenade, we returned along the cliff top, though decended to Boscombe Pier. From Boscombe back to Southborne most of the way was through gardens and along clifftop paths rather than the coast road, and much of this is the official Coastal Path.

Start

Just to start