Arrived back in the UK on 12th November in time for Mark to see Harriet on her 18th birthday (15th Nov), so that was celebrated by a morning drink in the local pub although it was her first legal day of drinking she already had a hangover from the night before! So hair of the dog it was!
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| Mark & Harriet - presents in hand |
The week that followed was busy with Mark trying to sort out his work trip to China
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| Enjoying dinner with Lisa |
After being away from the UK you return with a new appreciation for the area in which you live, we were lucky to be staying in Fawley with my parents in walking distance of the beach and forest - what more could you ask for.
We became very familiar with the ponies which live on the path leading from Fawley to Calshot. The running/walking became muddier on each visit but being able to run along the shoreline is lovely.
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| Passing the ponies on our way to Calshot |
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| Beach huts at Calshot on a sunny November day |
We also had a couple of fantastic walks in the New Forest , we even invested in a new ordnance survey map of the area so we could get out and about to some new places. One particularly nice walk was a Sunday afternoon spent with Lisa, Clare, Aaron, Beth, Ernie (Lisa’s little dog), Lex (Beth’s big dog) which was made even better with a delicious pub lunch at Beaulieu Road Station – certainly missed pub lunches whilst we have been away. We saw lots of New Forest Ponies, a huge number of deers (chased by Lex!) and even forest pigs!
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| Pig on the run from Mark |
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| Do we look like the Famous 5!! |
Mark’s trip to China was cancelled but he did manage to get a few days work in Denmark
We also decided to make the most of the time back in the UK Cornwall Bournemouth to Swanage and day 2 we would head out to Durlston Point and as far as we could along the coast based on weather. We were lucky with the weather although fully prepared with wet weather gear.
Day 1 – We caught train from Brockenhurst to Bournemouth , walked about ½ mile to join the coastal path at Bournemouth Pier, the sun was shining and the surf was up.
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| Bournemouth Pier |
The task ahead seemed a bit daunting when we looked into the distance and saw old Harry rocks which we had to walk past!
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| Headland in distance is Old Harry Rocks |
Great for us that a paved footpath ran from Bournemouth to Sand Banks where we boarded the chain ferry to cross Poole harbour and arrived at Studland Bay.
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| Disembarking chain ferry |
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| Studland Bay |
With the rain clouds looming we walked along the beach for a few miles as we moved every close to Old Harry.
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| Old Harry Rocks off point in distance |
We then had to head back along the cliffs to re-join the path, as we stopped to have some lunch we were joined marines on exercise, with a plane passing overhead and dropping them into Studland Bay – it was all very exciting as they were then picked up by Ribs waiting in the Bay.
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| 3 small dots are actually parachutes |
It felt like a huge achievement when we finally made it out to Old Harry, over 10 miles walked and in full wet weather gear as we had a few spots of rain.
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| Mark on the edge! |
We could now see Swanage Bay Poole harbour and Swanage were spectacular.
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| Swanage Bay |
A few more fields to cross and a big downhill stretch with a massive downpour and look how happy I was to arrive in Swanage!
We had booked a B&B (Robertsbrook Guest House) which turned out to be lovely especially the hot chocolate and ginger cake on arrival. We had a nice evening out with home cooked delicious food in a 600 year old pub (Black Swan Inn) just what was needed after walking almost 14 miles.
The next day after a monster breakfast we headed off to Durlston castle only a couple of miles away. It was already windy but we were lucky that the heavy rain had passed over night. The visitors centre at Durlston has recently been re-opened. The castle was built in the 1800’s and was planned to be part of a housing estate which never materialised, leaving the castle and also the pictured globe sculpture in some beautiful grounds.
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| Globe with Durlston Castle on the hill |
With the wind blowy and the tired legs from the day before we were both keen to just sit at the castle have a hot chocolate and a cake but we didn’t we pushed on out to the headland to enjoy the bracing wind!
Just along the path inside the Dulston park are the Tilly Whim caves which you are no longer able to enter but are an old quary where Portland Limestone was extracted and you can still see the use of the local stone in Swanage.
The scenery was stunning and being a blustery day made the sea amazing although the wind made walking quite a challenge as we were walking straight into it.
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| Mark on South West Coastal Path |
The path runs along the cliff edge for miles but was a challenge as it pretty wet, muddy and slippy and you were constantly up and down hills. One of the most spectacular sights along this area of coastline is the Dancing Ledges which is a flat area of rock at the bottom on a small cliff which is a popular area for climbing the better weather and provided some welcome shelter from the wind to have a brief rest.
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| Dancing Ledges - Dorset Coast |
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| Dancing Ledges - Dorset Coast |
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| Dancing Ledges - Dorset Coast |
From here we started to head inland and reached a the small village of Langton Matravers where we could catch the bus up to Wareham and were both very thankful when we could finally jump on a train to head home – 2nd day walking was only around 8 miles but this was pretty much all a off road and made harder by the constant wind.
This trip only made us want to walk more of the path but as we all know when you are back in the real life and trying to work, etc you never find time to do all the things you want to do in the UK.
Later that week we completed the pool element of our Open Water Padi Course, this was not something we had planned to do in the UK but with various special offers at Andark (great Dive school close to Southampton) in the winter and the chance to do all the theory and pool work before heading somewhere warmer to complete the Open Waters we could not resist. We had spent the last week and half cramming all the theory and the course was made even better by the fact that there we only the 2 of us on the course (I expect that was due to it being mid week in the winter). We successfully completed and are now just keen to practise in the sea with the fishies!
The week before Christmas was really busy for us but so nice to get to spend time with family and friends. Had a lovely afternoon tea with my mum at the Montague Arms in Beaulieu (New Forest ), lovely location and very festive at that time of year. A birthday meal for my mum, more lovely food and Lisa had made a lovely cake for my mum who is a big fan of liquorice allsorts.
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| Mums birthday - Mum, dad and Dan |
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| Mums birthday - Alan & Karen |
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| Fab cake |
We also had a special treat of going to the cinema to see Arthur Christmas with Alan, Karen & Dan which was such a nice and christmasy thing to do on Christmas Eve.
We had a lovely but a bit busy Christmas day, firstly we headed off to pick up the kids and then went to see Debbie and family (Mark’s sister) for a catch up and present exchange. We then took kids to the pub for presents which made a nice change.
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| Christmas Day - Harriet and Abbie |
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| Christmas Day - Mark & Dan |
After happy smiley faces from all the kids we dropped them home and headed back to my parents for Christmas dinner with my family and as with every Christmas lunch we all ate too much.
The final week before heading back to Gib became a rush to say goodbye to people including lunch with the kids, lunch with our old neighbours (Bernie & Pam) and tenants in our house, Harry Potter with Dan, visits to Vikki and visits from Lisa & Ernie, all very lovely but we still ran out of time to see everyone.
It was really nice to be back in the UK
