Day 100: English Coastal Path

D100: LULWORTH COVE to PORTLAND BILL

Saturday 20th May 2023

Today miles: 20.4 Total miles: 1682.8

You’d have thought for £33 that Durdle Door Holiday Park would have guaranteed me a decent nights sleep, well they didn’t. The expensive Thermorest air bed that I bought last year has a slow leak and this means I can feel every single lump and bump on the ground. I reached the coast near Durdle Door before 7am and was amazed at the number of people already visiting the natural limestone arch. There was even a couple in their wedding attire having their photo professionally taken with the arch in the background. It’s a great attraction. There’s several more gentle climbs and some dicey descents over the next couple of miles towards the Burning Cliffs. There’s a further descent from the cliff top down to Ringstead where I got a pleasant surprise when I chanced across The Ringstead Bay kiosk which was serving hot food. I obviously took full advantage and enjoyed a large English breakfast, a mug of coffee and grabbed two cans of fizzy pop to enjoy later.

I’ve now been walking along the South West Coast Path for a couple of days and I’ve already encountered hundreds of other walkers which is something I’ve rarely seen whilst walking the ECP. The vast majority of these walkers are heading West to East which I think is the more usual direction of travel on this most popular of national trails. There were even more ups and downs towards the Northern edge of Weymouth. I took a couple of shorter breaks through Weymouth before carrying on and arrived at Ferry Bridge in the early afternoon.
The Isle of Portland is not really an island at all as it’s connected to the mainland by Chisel Beach (a Barrier Beach). It’s actually a tied Island which is four miles long by one and a half miles wide and I’m about to walk around it.

The path along the rough stones of Chisel beach was hard going on the soles of my feet so I switched to the pavement for the flat mile to Portland Castle. It’s then a steep but short climb up through Fortunewell to arrive at the doors of HMP Portland. The views looking out across East Weare and the English Channel are pretty decent. I was following the route of the old Portland Coast Path which ended abruptly, without any warning on the edge of somebody’s front garden. I’m now forced to back track for about four hundred metres before descending down to the bottom of Grove Cliffs. Going down the narrow path I moved aside for several exhausted cyclists struggling to carry their bikes up the cliffs edge. I then walked along the bottom of the Grove Cliffs for around a mile. The area is clearly popular with climbers and I spotted literally hundreds of them sticking like spiders to the side of the cliffs.

After moving inland I arrived at Sweet Hill Farm (nearly wild camping) site and then happily paid my reasonably priced fee of £13. It’s a busy site, with basic but ample facilities. After eating, showering and chatting with some of the climbers I fell onto my leaking airbed soon after it had turned dark.