The Adventures of a Rally Roadie

The day starts overcast and stays that way. Another fine breakfast at The Rookery, pay for the room and pizzas from the previous night and into the Skoda. We’re off again.

The first stop is Durtle Door, another impressive chalk cliff arch with adjacent solitary stacks. This site, however, is that the end of a kilometer long hike. The good news is that it isn’t raining.

To us Yanks, it’s interesting that there are no barriers of guard rails at the cliff tops. If this was in the US, there’d be no end to the fences protecting us from falling/slipping/jumping off the cliff tops. (See the recent spate of fatal falls at the Grand Canyon in the spring of 2019.)

It’s an amusing twist that the socialist granny state of the EU has no barriers and the supposed freedom demanding US has everything short of electric fences protecting us from ourselves. Just guess whose leading in the tourist fatality sweepstakes.

Take photos. Talyn sketches a bit. Hike back to the car and on the road again. The next stop is a sand sculpture park in Weymouth. We find the park which turns out to be more of an amusement park. Buy the tickets and enter.

Whatever the location, the park has some amazing sculpts. The display is collection of massive sculpts that follow a yearly theme that changes every year. This the theme is movies, Start Wars, The Avengers, Dumbo. Etc and the sculptors are all world-reknown sand sculptures. (I know, I didn’t know there was such a thing either.)

It doesn’t take long to see the sculpts and take our figures. Talyn takes some photos to use for later sketches. Back in the car.

We’re headed for Seaton and it’s a bit of a drive on some very narrow local roads which occasionally widen into true two lane roads. Nobody moves fast here. Fifty miles per hour is fine, especially when you meet on-coming traffic. Especially for Barbara who is sitting on the left side of the car which drags on the hedgerows whenever we pass said on-coming traffic.

We on our way to Beer, home to the Beer Quarry Caves which are actually caves mines out of the chalk veins for the chalks that are used for all sorts of purposes. Along the way, the weather starts to improve and we see some blue sky. We stop at a pub along the way for a quick lunch.

During the lunch, I ask the bar tender in the pub about a sign we saw just as we were turning into the pub. “Cygnets Hatching” (?) She speaks with an accent, probably eastern European, and doesn’t seem to understand. We finish lunch and leave for Beers.

Just a few kilometers down the road from the pub we see another sign ”Cygnets Hatching” and then another sign, “AbbotsburySwannery”. A swan hatchery? Of course, cygnets hatching. Can’t resist this. Left turn to the swannery.

Abbotsbury Swannery is and has been run by the local abbey for hundreds of years as, first, a way to support the abbey, and then, later, as a commercial venture. We buy our tickets in the gift shop and walk down the private road to the swannery. It’s a bit of a hike (sure to be approved by out Fitbits) and we stop at a hedge maze to wander around a bit and then enter the swannery itself.

There are hundreds of birds here, mostly assorted breeds of swans. But also Canadian geese and assorted breeds of ducks. There are breeding pairs, each with clutches of cygnets, some with up to six or seven little birds. There are even separate small holding areas for rescues and pens (female swans) who have lost their mates. The cygnets of those pens who have lost their mates are at risk from other cobs (male swans) until they are of sufficient size to protect themselves.

It’s a hugely interesting area with hundreds (maybe thousands) of birds. Most of the birds just wander about the area with pens and cygnets padding about or paddling in the criss-crossing channels of just sitting about on the footpaths.

It’s been a beautiful day with blue skies though still windy. But we have to move on to Seaton and the Beer Caves. Back up the road. Into the car and back on the road. What a wonderful find.

An hour later, we are in Beers. We wander about the small lanes following the instructions from the Skoda GPS and the some times more accurate Google Maps GPS. Which occasionally leads to hilarious conflicts from the speakers of the twp GPSs. Not surprisingly the phone GPS is usually the more accurate or correct than the car GPS which is not surprising considering that the Skoda GPS is only updated occasionally if at all.

GPS nerd hilarity aside, we find the caves and park. First the porta-potties. Then as we head toward the entrance of the site we meet someone coming out who tells us that the last entrance time for caves has past and we won’t be allowed to enter. We’ll have to try tomorrow.

We head off to find Kate’s Farm B&B. Back in and out of Beer on some narrow roads and out on a decent two lane road. The Skoda doesn’t know anything about Kate’s but the Google Maps does. But I take the wrong left turn (I should have waited another 100 meters) and we have to wait for Maps to recalculated.

We follow directions into a small hamlet. Take the next right. On to a very narrow lane. Maybe we should have u-turned but we’re this far. Another intersection and we take the left turn. But we aren’t sure where we going and finally decide to u-turn.

Back down the hill and when we get to the last intersection, we see the small sign: Kate’s Farm B&B. Into the lot and park. AS we get out of the car Kate comes out to greet us and welcome us to here home.

The farm house is a very old but very beautiful building. Kate tells us the the “only thing straight in the entire house is me.” She has two lovely dogs, one, Maisie, an older female wire-hair. The other, a male Yorkie (a full-sized one, not one of those tiny American tea-cup ones) named Rambo. That seals the deal for the boys. We’re here for two nights. They’ll be happy about that.

We have to find a pub for dinner. Only breakfast, no dinner, at a B&B. Into the little nearby hamlet to a pub for a surprisingly good dinner. A great single malt collection (and a double Aberlour neat) pushes this pub way up the list. Back to the B&B. Tomorrow, fossils in Lime Regis.

Obi-wan