Category: Walk of the month

Old Harry Rocks – February’s walk of the month

 

Old Harry Rocks, Dorset
Old Harry Rocks, photographed by Ian Alcock.                                                                         “A nice crisp winters morning made a pleasant change from the rain. Not much colour before sunrise but the early morning sun cast a nice light over the chalk rock faces as it started to appear from below the horizon to the right. With all the coastal erosion recently I wonder how much longer Old Harry will survive, but hopefully for many years to come.”  www.mydigitaleye.net

 

A walk along the Jurassic coast in Dorset from Studland Village to Old Harry Rocks is February’s walk of the month.

This is a moderate stroll, with some long but gentle climbs and descents, around the spectacular chalk stacks off Handfast Point at Studland. The same sea that carved the soft rock into caves and arches also polished the vertical cliffs to a dazzling white and there are far-ranging views over Swanage in one direction and Wareham and Bournemouth in the other.

Last October, Old Harry’s Rocks was one of the highlights along the 10-mile South West Coast Path Challenge walk led by the South West Coast Path Association. Among the participants was the artist Sasha Harding, who spoke to Alex Green about the coastal landscape around Swanage where she grew up and how it inspired her lifelong love of the South West Coast Path, which she completed and documented in her stunning book, A Brush with the Coast.Sasha Harding 2015-10-31 13.56.18

Listen to our podcast with Sasha on the Dorset coast around Old Harry’s Rocks and if you’d like to purchase a copy of the book, visit the Association’s online shop.
Sasha's book

Let us know about your own experiences on this stretch of coast in the comments below.

Happy walking!

January Walk of the Month

Happy New Year!

Now is the time to set yourself some new fitness goals and step out onto the blustery South West Coast Path to blow away the cobwebs – just make sure you take your waterproofs! The health benefits of walking by the sea are well founded and it’s one of the simplest, most pleasurable ways to keep fit while enjoying a great day out.

January’s long but mostly level 7.4 mile (11.8 km) walk starts from the First Downs car park outside Porthleven. It includes a lakeside walk around The Loe, where Sir Bedivere is said to have cast Excalibur into the water as King Arthur lay dying. Here, the waves crash deafeningly on the shingle barrier beach, the site of an 1807 shipwreck costing 120 lives, commemorated in a memorial in the dunes. Cornwall’s largest natural freshwater lake is a major overwintering area for many wildfowl and waterbirds, and cormorants roost in the trees fringing the swamp behind it. There is an optional shortcut across Loe Marsh, reducing the distance to about 8km (5 miles).

For more details about this walk from Porthleven, go to its page on the South West Coast Path website.

Porthleven on the south Cornwall coast is a great base for a winter walk on a less blustery day than the one pictured above. This image of waves crashing into the clock tower features in the 2016 South West Coast Path calendar for January. All 12 pictures are on display at Lynmouth Pavilion, until 31st January.

You can purchase a copy of the 2016 calendar from the South West Coast Path Association’s online Shop but stock is limited and once they’re gone they’re gone. So, be quick!