On the Road to the South West

Durdle Door is one of the main attractions on Dorset’s Jurassic coastline and is ever popular with photographers like myself. 1/100s 32mm F8.0 ISO 64.

Last year I journeyed down to the Southwest for the first time to explore Cornwall and the North Devon coast. Feeling the camping itch once again I decided to visit the other parts, Dorset & South Devon, before the summer holiday rush set in. This time around I didn’t have an early start so I simply left in the morning to saunter down to the New Forest where I would be taking my lunch stop. This was also an area I had also never been before, so it made an ideal place to explore for a few hours. Created by William the Conqueror over nine hundred years ago, it is today a National Park, and the ‘new’ moniker has stuck ever since. The weather wasn’t especially inviting but it was interesting to walk this place that has sense of the wild with dense bracken and moss-covered trees. Much like Thetford Forest I found that getting away from the car parks soon took you away from the crowds.

The New Forest has a mix of open spaces and woodland with both evergreen and deciduous trees. 1/160s 70mm F5.6 ISO 64.

Much like Dartmoor you’ll encounter roaming horses and ponies. 1/100s 70mm F4.0 ISO 250.

There’s plenty of interest to be found in this old forest, protected for 900 years. 1/100s 32mm F5.6 ISO 125.

Camped up in a village just outside of Weymouth, I got lucky with the weather the next day as it remained dry right up until I returned in the evening (and it did not let up after that, always fun in a tent!). Durdle door is one of the most famous coastal landmarks on the British coastline and had been the nucleus for this entire trip. Not having far to drive I arrived reasonably early in the morning which proved to have been the right decision. Even being a weekday, the crowds quickly grew so I was glad to be able to set up my cameras without jostling for space. It’s equally as impressive in person as it had been in photos, but I was under no illusion that I was about to take anything spectacular seeing as I was shooting outside of a brilliant sunrise or sunset. Having finished up here I then made the steep decline down the other side to Lulworth Cove. A real tourist trap but I can attest that you can buy wonderful locally made ice cream here. The perfect fuel for the tough walk back.

The beach by Durdle Door brings in huge swathes of tourists as the day goes on. 1/80s 24mm F8.0 ISO 64.

The walk to Lulworth Cove from Durdle Door carpark is not overly long but it is steep descent. 1/80s 70mm F8.0 ISO 64.

The picturesque village is nestled in a small valley leading down to the sea. 1/80s 36mm F8.0 ISO 64.

I wasn’t the only film photography hipster there that day. It’s always fun to chat to people who share this still fairly unusual hobby. 1/80s 32mm F8.0 ISO 64.

The next day was a travel day moving around from Dorset to South Devon where I would be camping for the remainder of the trip. I had a quick stopover at the famous Chesil beach in Weymouth, which looks deceptively sandy from afar but is reality an enormous pebble beach. It’s much more tiring to walk on than you first expect as well.

The vast expanses of Chesil Beach. 1/200s 32mm F5.6 ISO 64.

The endless amounts of pebbles make it a hard place to walk. 1/200s 70mm F5.6 ISO 64.

Portland Harbour is popular with windsurfers amongst others. 1/320s 200mm F4.5 ISO 64.

My trusty Peugeot 205 performed well over the course of the entire trip. 1/320s 75mm F4.5 ISO 64.

I will admit that my second campsite was not very well thought out. Round the corner from Start Point Lighthouse, it was the ideal place to stay for walking the coastal path and doing very local trips out, but to get further afield was an absolute nightmare. The whole area was a spider’s web of single-track road with high hedges, and often you’d find a big tractor or coach coming in the other direction, often meaning a lot of reversing in awkward places. I can’t imagine how bad it must be during the peak of the summer holidays. Very easy to lose your bearings, it’s best to stick to the major A roads even if Google maps says another way is ‘quicker’.

Start Point Lighthouse, right around the corner from where I was camping. 1/80s 29mm F5.6 ISO 200.

The Eden Project. You can read more about it by clicking here. 1/400s 24mm F5.6 ISO 64.

The following day I made my way to the Eden Project that, though it might be a little expensive, is well worth a visit. The drive there certainly reinforced how awkward it was to navigate the area I had camped in. I won’t go in great detail about this day as you can read about it from my previous blog here.

The nationally scare by locally abundant Cirl Bunting, a real welcome surprise for a keen birdwatcher like myself. 1/400s 200mm F4.0 ISO 64.

My penultimate day was a rest day, utilizing the great location to walk the coastal paths all the way to Devon’s most southernly point – Prawle Point. Even before I had left the farm fields, I was drawn to a birdsong I had never heard before and a bird I didn’t recognise when I looked at it with my binoculars. It turns out that, unbeknown to me, this area was a stronghold for Cirl Buntings, which are only found in this particular part of South Devon. Quite a big bonus for someone who’s a keen birdwatcher and it was wonderful to hear them singing all away along the coast.

The coastal path takes you right along to the most southern part of Devon - Prawl Point. 1/160s 145mm F5.6 ISO 64.

Restored in 1997, Prawle Point Observatory is manned 365 days a year entirely by volunteers. 1/250s 24mm F5.6 ISO 64.

For those who need a rest after a long walk, there’s a well placed bench to sit, relax and enjoy the surroundings. If you look carefully you can see the rusty remains of the ship Demetrios which was shipwrecked in stormy weather in 1992. 1/250s 35mm F5.6 ISO 64.

During my trip I paid a visit to the Slapton Sands Memorial, an unearthed Sherman tank that had sunk to the seabed during WW2. It stands in recognition of the 749 American servicemen who lost their lives during the disastrous Exercise Tiger. 1/320s 56mm F5.6 ISO 64.

Finally, the day came to return home, but to extract a little bit more out of my time on the road I made one final stop at Stonehenge. I’d driven past it the previous year (yet somehow had missed seeing it from the road) but wanted to make sure I got a chance to get a proper view of the stones. The new visitor centre was now open which showed a small range of artifacts as well as models and images of how the site would have looked over the ages. There are shuttle buses that can take you there and back, but I opted to do the medium length walk through the wood and over the fields in the hope of seeing another rare bird, a Great Bustard. So, when I had barely even begun my walk and saw one flying in the sky, I could scarcely believe it. With its massive size it is unmistakable, but it quickly settled into a nearby field and disappeared. That was the only one I saw all day, but I was still over the moon. I remember listening to a radio broadcast in 2004 about the beginning of the reintroduction program and had been keen for years to see them. Hopefully next time I can capture a photo of one as well.

The lengthy but scenic walk to Stonehenge. 1/500s 135mm F5.6 ISO 64.

The A303 runs alongside Stonehenge and has been the source of many accidents over the years as people slow down to view the stones. 1/80s 200mm F8.0 ISO 64.

I’m not sure what I can write about the stones that hasn’t already been written. For me it was just great to see them in person, though sadly you can’t get up close to them like in days past (my grandfather told me they once stopped to have a picnic right in the middle many years ago), but that doesn’t take anything away from their majesty. They are a unique and ancient relic and one of our greatest national heritages. It was fascinating to learn more about the excavations and restorations in the early parts of the twentieth century. I will have to come back again during an event so I can actually touch them next time.

The Heel Stone stands apart from the stone circle. 1/100s 32mm F8.0 ISO 64.

The site is greatly diminished from what it would have originally been but restorations during the early 20th century ensure that what is remaining will be around for generations to come. 1/100s 46mm F8.0 ISO 64.

The new visitor centre is now open to the public. You can choose to walk back or take a shuttle bus to save yourself the time and effort. 1/400s 130mm F4.0 ISO 125.

The visitor centre inside is not extensive but it shows off some of the artifacts and visitors can see how the site changed through the ages. 1/100s 24mm F5.6 ISO 4000.

And that concluded my short break away. On the way home on the A390 I could saw the hordes were beginning to descend in the opposite direction so I was glad to have gone at the time that I did, though it would have been nice to have had more than just myself camping onsite. There’s so much great coastline in that part of the country, and I really do hope I can get down there one day with truly glorious weather to make the most of the beaches. That’s never the way with the British weather, but it does make us appreciate it even more when these seemingly rare occasions occur.  

I intend to explore more of the coastal paths that run around the entirety of the UK. 1/30s 40mm F8.0 ISO 64.

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