A Beautiful Weekend

27th - 29th June 2015

There are no excuses but it's photos of Swanage again! (I need to take photos of sunny summery days in Swanage to record the changing seasons).We spent a sunny weekend in Swanage but managed to keep away from people and just observe.  On Saturday we watched gig racing from a park overlooking the beach and later on we were lucky enough to see the flypast of a hurricane as part of Armed Forces Weekend.

Races were continuous all afternoon.

The Hurricane flew along the valley from Corfe Castle before circling around the bay a couple of times, not a sight you see very often!

This was one of the only photos taken on Sunday, a mackerel sky taken from the garden.

On Monday we walked into Swanage for a coffee then had a walk through Prince Albert Gardens to take in another view of Swanage.

The sea was very clear, just perfect.

Prince Albert Gardens.

Looking towards Durlston Country Park.

Swanage Pier.

It seemed odd in the heat of the summer to see masses of young horse chestnuts.

And so ends another weekend in Swanage, time to get home, to enjoy I believe more hot weather, can't be bad!

Frame Heath and Denny Lodge Inclosures near Brockenhurst & A Cuckoo

Friday 26th June 2015

It's been quite a while since we last had a decent walk in the New Forest.  A month or so ago we picked a travel bug up from Swanage and  it needed to be dropped off in a geocache fairly urgently so we chose a cache at a favourite spot near Brockenhurst.  It was a lovely warm sunny start to the morning and from where we parked I could see a fantastic group of foxgloves that were just asking to be photographed.

Despite the lack of rain, this area was boggy and soft, perhaps that's the sort of conditions foxgloves like, they were certainly thriving.

Gorgeous.

We walked through Frame Heath Inclosure where some time ago lots of trees were felled, but now the Forestry Commission have planted masses of young trees,which are fenced off to keep the deer out  and can just about be seen here planted in rows.  

Creeping up the fence in places was honeysuckle.

In fact honeysuckle was all over the place.

We walked down to the main Southampton to Bournemouth line.  Incidentally, today we found that deer don't flinch or look up when a train sounds it's horn for the pedestrian crossing and speeds by but they saw us 200 metres away and took flight - are we really that scary?

It was good to be back amongst so much greenery and trees.

At this spot we heard our first cuckoo of the year, very late I realise but we just haven't been out in the Forest to hear them this year.  I assume the cuckoos will be off home to Africa again soon.

Another plantation of young trees being protected from deer!

 Pens for rounding up ponies, at the railway bridge crossing over to Denny Lodge Inclosure, this unfortunately was the last we saw of the sun today.

We walked back alongside the railway line on the other side until we came to this lovely pond, where we had lunch and sat watching deer grazing in the distance.

I was hoping to see frogs, but there were none to be seen, however there were plenty of lilies and a few damsel flies.

Lilies, so perfect they almost look plastic!

Near here we found a geocache that is called trains and tadpoles, well, there were no tadpoles today but there were plenty of trains!

This tree alongside the railway line looked rather out of place, it was an old fir tree, quite an unusual one too.

The railway bridge crossing back into Frame Heath Inclosure is under repair, with some heavy equipment parked up waiting to be used (it was a nice bit of colour as the sun had gone in and it all looked a bit washed out).

An ant hill full of activity (not a good idea to stand still too long here!)

Then it was back to the car, having walked 3 miles and having found 2 geocaches.

Durlston Country Park

Friday 19th June 2015

These are just a few photos from today. We walked into Swanage for a coffee and a look around the very busy bustling market via the beach where summer is in full swing.  Quite a few of the new beach huts were being used and  various cafes and ice cream parlours that have been closed up until now were open for business.  The place that hires out pedalos and various bits of beach equipment (deck chairs, windbreaks etc) was up and running and there were lots more people strolling about.  I don't do crowds of people so if it gets too much busier I might have to avoid it for a while!

Swanage.

In the afternoon we had a quick walk at Durlston Country Park where we saw lots of guillemots diving for fish and swimming about in lines - almost ocd lines - odd.

The Globe.

Looking towards Old Harry Rocks in the distance.

At the Tilly Whim Caves.

Chapman's Pool - Near Worth Matravers

Thursday 18th June 2015

We haven't had many warm sunny days yet this summer, however today was most definitely one of them - but with a nice breeze (which later on was very welcome when we were climbing back off of the beach).  We parked on the outskirts of Worth Matravers and walked across a couple of large fields of crops before getting to the sea.  I hope I've got this right, I can never remember which cereal is which!

A fantastic field of wheat?

with the odd bit of barley? thrown in!

The farmer has kindly kept a wide footpath through the middle of the fields.

And so to the coast.

Chapman's Pool, for information see here

The cliffs above the beach, taken from the footpath about halfway down to the beach.  It was a long way down and it was even further coming back up!!!!!!

Dorset certainly has some out of the way, quiet and lovely places.

Chapman's Pool, almost there.

There were only about half a dozen people on the whole beach.  It was a fascinating place to spend an afternoon mooching around and exploring.

There were plenty of fossils in the rocks, like this ammonite.

A nice place to paddle then sit in the sun for a while.  Then we had to climb back up, and it was too hot a day for that, so there was a fair amount of moaning!

Back on the cliff top we saw this plaque set into the dry stone wall, we saw some of these a little while back when we walked in the opposite direction to Chapman's Pool, this one says 'stones lean together'. Nice.