It’s a bit sad looking over the photos and artwork for Jaunt 4, since I now know that it was the last of it’s kind, as I cannot afford to even do this sort of long term fairly local trip due to very recent economic changes. Simply put, I can’t even afford this, Hard Up Hiker has now become entirely true to it’s name. Wild camping here we come, I guess? End of an era.
Shame because I thought I had finished the whole of the Jurassic Coast, when I forgot I didn’t walk the Weymouth – Bridport section. Not exactly hard, it’s mostly along shingle, and I did part of it. But a sense of leaving things unfinished – maybe I could do that as a day trip or a short trip, it’s only around 10 miles and easy going. But it will have to be a wild camp if I take my tent…
Anyway this trip just after the August Bank Holiday (given the drama of previous years I wasn’t going anywhere near the area then) was really to me the finalisation of the Jurrassic Jaunt project. I finally got to Exmouth and Sidmouth despite being foiled by sun-burn accelerated eczema last year – this time I brought almost every unction under the sun to avoid that – suburn was still a thing, but didn’t escalate despite the mini-heatwave.
But first…that pesky Kimmeridge bit I failed to do two years ago…
Transcript
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As is traditional, I’m at working and this is the start of
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Jaunt 4. I’m on the train and it’s been a year, I just checked, it’s been a year
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since that last post and it’s been a very long process this year. Usually I
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pervericate a lot about going away on on one of these trips. It’s not usually
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several months. I was planning to go away in June in the France and then that didn’t happen
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because of money and then there’s riots and unrest in the country and then I
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was thinking, oh I’ll go to Greece and then there was a forest fire and so I was like,
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eventually I just got to August and on. Let’s just get away for a few days or a
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week. All these announcements, it’s just, you can’t hear the announcements that you’re
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supposed to be able to hear and then there’s all these noisy ones that I’ve
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got here. Yes, so I’m finally on my way to camp at Corfe Castle for the first
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night and then try and do the walk to Kimmeridge. I don’t mind if I do it, it
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snails pastes fine. It’s just, this time I’m going to try and do it. My equipment
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still isn’t light enough but I’m going to try and take my tent with me and do it the
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proper way which is what the intention was. I’ve always been for the last few years but
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I have my equipment so shit and I’ve had that money. So hopefully, hopefully the new
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Coyote 80 backpack and the Lanshan 2 tent is good because it’s not the bigger
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tent as well but you know it’s slightly more weight but it’s not massively
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heavier because when it’s raining the old tent was very claustrophobic and the
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weather is very unsettled because it’s September but it’s kind of a mixture of
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it’s nice today but tomorrow’s going to rain and then the weekend would of
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course there’s going to be another rail strike which is another reason why I’m
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probably glad I didn’t go over the bank holiday weekend because of course there
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was some more industrial action and also I almost forgot my charger and a few
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other things so that would have been shit. So hopefully this is going to be a
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good one. Previously the odd jaunts, no sort of even numbered jaunts have been
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complete disasters. Jaunt 2 as a total disaster. Jaunt 1 and 3 were very good so
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hopefully it’s better than that but we’ll see, we’ll see but as I said my mental
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health hasn’t been good over the last couple of months. There’s part of the
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reasons why I haven’t been doing as much landscape work. I mean it’s still been
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working, I’ve still been doing a lot of artwork but it’s been a cruel summer as I’ve been
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painting, sort of turning 50 probably didn’t help either but yeah it’s you know what, I feel like I
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sort of wasted the summer a bit so it’s time to you know be waiting around, there
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was events I had to attend and you know things I wanted to do in July and August
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yeah. There was all kind of reasons why it was delayed but I still was like
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itching to get out there, itching to do this but also quite at the same time
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pathological demand avoidance and doesn’t mix very well with packing and being
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neurodiverse does not mix well with packing and and stress and anxiety so
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it was like I would get to a certain point and then go off and then I
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just store or realise something wasn’t right and it’s yeah it’s just that
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winter repeat for the last two or three weeks that’s been my life so I’m glad to
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finally get away but we’ll find out if the campsite’s still there although I’ve
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got plenty of backups if it isn’t, I’ll check that on the phone now to make
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sure it’s actually got a website but it was there last year. Otherwise I’ll head to
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Swanage and I could always wild camp if I have to so rather populated area is
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probably not good idea so anyway speak to you soon
I was heading back to Corfe Castle Camping and Caravanning where I was two years ago – I knew it was running (Eweleaze ends at the August Bank Holiday) and decided to go there and use it as a base to complete the Swanage to Kimmeridge part of the coast (more about that in part two). I’ve since found out that this campsite was where Mike Leigh’s legendary Nuts In May was filmed. Ironic and funny because that play is a running joke on the various Jaunts…
So after the traditional Woking Backpack Shot, and this time a selfie, I made it fairly easily to Wareham, and got the 30 More bus to Corfe. I always go back to somewhere I know, it lessens the stress if you know where everything is, and it takes me a day or two to unwind from a long trip.
As usual I arrived really hungry, so set up my tent and went looking for food as I didn’t really want to cook, via playing on the way with the green light mode of my Energizer head torch, being a literal Green Man!….It was just before 9pm when I got to Corfe and everything food-wise in Corfe was closed, not even my favourite Castle Inn. It was dark and shut up even for drinks! I had to go to Swanage on the bus and ate Chinese takeway by the beach…again. At least this time it was warmer. And the Super Moon was out:
Supermoon over Swanage
Thankfully the rain was listening and decided to say ‘hey chill in your new tent’ – I had just upgraded my Lanshan 1 to the bigger Lanshan 2 as there was a deal on Amazon…I’m glad I did have the bigger tent as it rained almost completely for 24 hours. The reason for the upgrade was last year’s claustrophobia in the tiny tent during rain, and thankfully I seam sealed the required parts of tent just before the deluge.
That was a depressing start to the trip. I did record a tentcast and as intended, a video for my Hard Up Hiker channel – you can hear the rain hitting the tent! I did a review of my first night in the tent, and given the horrible conditions, it came out with flying colours.
Transcript
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I don’t know if you can hear that, the crickets and the much wildlife around and you might
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be able to hear somebody in a tent or house is playing annoying rock music a long way away.
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As with a video by Stephen Smith, which I watched from post about recently on the Twitter
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I might post it on the blog or something, there is no real silence anyway, which completely.
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This is pretty silent, it’s the odd car, the odd thing coming through and I’m wearing my green head
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torch and I’m walking to a cough castle and it’s about 8pm so I’ll pass late 30, I’m coming up to
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9am and I’m kind of rushing to see if I can find some food in cough, might be a bit too late,
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maybe a while till I set up a tent. A video I saw said 5 minutes and even with the experience of
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putting up the Lanshan 1 because I’ve got the Lanshan 2 now, that’s the bigger tent, it’s still
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a bit of a head scratch in some places and also I’ve still got to work out where to put things
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and I’m just looking at the shadow of the cough castle which I can see because I’m brought out
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my finally, I put this over nearly a year ago, this ever ready head torch with the red and green
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lights and it really does help, just having red, a light with red or green, it does help reduce
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the amount of bombarding you get from insects and attract your tent and stuff and also it means
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you can actually see, you don’t just see sort of black shadows because it’s all, it’s all as you
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would with a normal light, the white light, yellowish white light. So yeah, I’m going to see if I’ve
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got some food, I managed to check in okay, the campsite called me back because I called them
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and then went to voicemail and they went to voicemail and all that sort of voicemail tag but
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eventually I managed to actually get checked in, I was just thinking of just camping somewhere,
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ironically the place, the place I, now there’s a car, the place I planned to camp was where I
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ended up camping, it was exactly, he showed me, there’s always these people with massive cars
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and four-way vehicles, he showed me the place to cut cars, that’s exactly where I think you’re
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going because it was under some trees and a bit away from, because it’s a campsite near Bucknowle,
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used to be a camping and caravanning club two years ago when I was last here, I’m mistaken
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my last podcast, I’ve already made mistakes, it’s two years, I did look, I did look them up because
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I did see that they were stopping me in camping and caravanning club and but they’re still running,
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it’s about 10-15 minutes outside of Corfe Castle and they are, oh wow, green lights,
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oh it’s something green, that’s weird, I think it’s a sign covered up with greenery,
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because in green lights, kind of certain things for us, I say with red that I found my tent,
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anything reflective for us is green, which is quite weird and my tent for my little things in
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my tent light up greatly and relight, my little reflective strips and the tent’s great, it works
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very well, I’ll give a proper review shortly after I’ve slept in it, but it’s just so nice to actually
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have a proper tent, as in like, the Lanshan 1 is great, very cheap and very very light and small
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and you know and people are still hung with Chinese or is it reliable, it is but it’s just so
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claustrophobic in there and so for the extra, I think it’s extra 100 grams or something or
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150 grams, I’m like yeah I’d much rather have, because the irony is that, I mean the only annoying
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thing is that obviously unless I find a way of, you know, I might see if it survives me taking
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out one of the poles, but that’s probably not a good thing to do, so while it’s up you need
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both poles, but I’m kind of moving towards this idea of walking, you know, less campsites and more,
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you know, camping along the coast, that’s the original idea, so that fits that, but I will miss
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not having either a tent pole when I’m doing a base camp thing and having them with me,
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especially as I’ve got some, I got some Craghoppers cheap, Craghoppers carbon fibre which are really
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good, very light, I was promising myself not to spend any money here and I ended up getting a new
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tent and that and those, it’s a bit naughty, but you know, but yes, I will see if I get some munchies,
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I promise I’ve got lots of food with me for the rest of the trip, as per Jaunt 3, it’s going to be
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very, you know, going to a pub or a, you know, takeaways are fine, going to a sort of expensive
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eats is going to be not something I do very often, but it’s something I like to do on the first night
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if I can, it’s not always possible, I might end up having to go home and then, what was that?
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No, I thought it was a green thing, I think it was that light, that glow, no.
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So yes, I’m going to not do this very often, but for the first night it’s just nice to,
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especially as a pub for coaching horses, I think it’s called, which I’m hoping I get there in time
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and I’m hoping has nice food available and it’s serving tonight, if not I’ll see what does it take
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away or something, because it’s nice to have something that’s not after the stress of getting
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there and her drama of setting up and everything, it’s nice just to have a nice meal, it’s why I was
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annoyed with Eweleaze, you know, that last year I got there and then the barn was like, I’m going to
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try it again and they were still like, nope, they just thought, one look at me and they were like,
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I’m going to get too scruffy, that’s what it felt like, it wasn’t late on in the day,
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they were holding up space and last time they actually seemed to be like, yeah we’ll make space
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and really proactive, which is disappointing, because you expect to sort of,
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that was one of the reasons why I went back and one of the reasons why I came back here is
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not documented, because I wasn’t doing these podcasts for Jaunt 1, is that I came to Corfe Castle
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and to this very website, very campsite and
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they were like, oh hikers are always welcome here, we’ll always have space for hikers,
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you know, we’ll always and even got to the point of one of the caravanning types
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had to go where I was camped, even though I’d been put there by them and they were like, no,
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they’re always welcome here and they basically wrote to hold them off for me, which was wonderful,
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that’s why I came back, I was like, yes, that’s the kind of place I like, because a lot of places
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will take the higher money of kind of, you know, those big enormous vans and
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my other homes and caravans and they’re not giving shit about
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I was post, people were tense, there’s no one matching Corfe, it’s a bit quiet, there are
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pubs open, I can smell pizza, so looks like the Greyhound might be doing some food,
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so we’ll try there, but we’ll still try the place I know and like, it’s nine o’clock,
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so I promise not to do too many of these long rambly things, those are the bells of Edward
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the Martyr Church, I painted and drew that when I was last here, and you can see that on my blog
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tjbaker.co.uk, just search for Jaunt 1, you will find, but yeah, I was hoping to do less of these,
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so I’ll stop rambling, I’ll speak to you soon.
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Rain, rain, go away, come again another day,
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it’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring, yes, it’s checking it down, I knew it was going
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to rain, I did the seam sealing on the tents when I got back last night, and yes, news,
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dear listener, yeah it’s an update, Corfe Castle has no food at nine o’clock at night,
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which I surprised me, I went to my old pub, which I can’t remember his name, it’s the
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Coach & Horses or it’s called something else, but it’s right before, and they were closed,
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and they said nowhere else would serve food, so I had to take a bus into Swanage and do what I did
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on jaunt 2, but in jaunt 1, in jaunt 1 or jaunt 2, I had actually ended up having to do,
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I’ve done it several times, Chinese in the, well it wasn’t too cold, but it was a bit chilly,
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sitting on the seafront, because the fish and chips in Swanage is absolute piss, absolute
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shite, I really do not recommend most of the takeaways in Swanage, they are, the Chinese
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is good, probably the pizzas are alright, but there’s always a problem with gluten with me,
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but yeah, I’ve had some dreadful some of the worst fish and chips I’ve had and
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ever have had in Swanage, so not recommended or at the most meh, you expect decent fish and chips at
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the seaside, unfortunately Swanage is just a bit too much of a weird tourist trap, so it’s weird
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sitting there on the seafront late at night, sort of gobbling down Chinese, washed down with some
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very cheap sparkling rose, I couldn’t find a single little bottle, and yes, so if the rain doesn’t,
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well the rain is supposed to let up shortly, hopefully, the new tent is fine, it seems to be
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holding up well, without any major problems or leaks, seemingly, and we will see, it’s pretty
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heavy rain now, we’ll see if we get anything coming through, I think I might have slightly
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dampened the bottom of my down bag, but I think it’s probably because I pushed it too far against
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the walls, but no, it seems to be bearing up, and so we’re just sort of sorting out the tent,
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planning our breakfast, because I don’t really want to go out there into the rain, and
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just wondering about the day, what’s going to happen, but it’s a lot nicer being in this tent
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than the Lanshan 1 in the rain, this is why I got it, because I mean seriously,
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it’s supposed to be a two-person tent, and you could put all the stuff outside, so you could
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probably fit two people in here, but it’s going to be a real push, but for one person it’s nice,
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I mean the general rule is, you know, always go one up on tents if you can, and I knew that,
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but I was trying to be ultra lightweight, and the Lanshan 1 is four seasons, this is three
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seasons, I wouldn’t be in the Lanshan 2, three seasons, or even any of the Lanshan
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three seasons, if it’s going to be cold, it was about 10 degrees, 15 degrees last night,
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I think it was a bit colder, it said the weather reports is 15, I checked before I came,
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because I was trying to see how much cold weather gear I had to bring,
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it’s not, it was, you know, I could see my breath at one point, so it’s a bit chillier, but
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it’s fine, I’ve got this new, I’m just doing a video on hard-up hiker, which I will try and post
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in the description of this, introducing the tent, and some of my gear, like the Aegis Max
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sleeping bag down, which kept me warm, it was amazing for the first time ever to be in a tent
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and not cold, because I had this really shitty carry-more bag, and on previous,
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previous podcasts and previous blogs over at the tjbaker.co.uk, endless moments,
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it made me cold, especially on Jaunt 2, and I was like, no, I’m not going to do that this year,
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so I invested in a cheap Chinese down bag, and I do hope the birds were not abused,
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but ethics are for people who can pay for it, really, unfortunately,
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and a few other bits and bobs around the tent, so yes, I really want my coffee, I’ve only got
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hungry, I’m wondering if I could risk doing something which I’ve never done before, which is,
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because we’ve got two awnings, and we’ve got space, and it’s not packed full of shit,
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I might actually be able to try if I open the awning, because the tent’s completely wet,
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I might just try and see if I can run the cooker from the tent, but not too close to the tent,
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I do not want to fire, there’s what worries me about charging my batteries, especially as I have
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these little lithium batteries now, and obviously the power banks, I obviously don’t have solar today,
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because hey, you can hear the rain, it’s not exactly the sunniest day, I don’t need it because all
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my banks are charged up at the moment, but I need to work out a way of charging
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where I’ve got the battery outside, because I’m always worried that I’ll come back and find the
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tent in the flood here, it’s been burnt down because of a rogue battery, oh and of course
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the birds have christened, I saw about seven o’clock in the morning a sort of bird sort of
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sort of bouncing by, and then of course shortly afterwards they got christened,
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and so I’m hoping the rain will wash our way, because yeah, unfortunately because I’m near a tree,
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I’ve had lots of bird splats on my nice new tent, which is annoying, anyway I will speak to you soon.
Part of the hurry to get down there was the ever-present rail strikes, for Friday and Saturday, so although I knew the weather was better at the weekend and grotty before, I had to suck it up as I knew that arriving on Thursday before a strike was risky as I had no contingency. So I had to just sit it out and hope it cleared later. It did for a few hours on Thursday afternoon, so I went into Corfe and as I had a spare National Trust card for the first time I visited Corfe Castle itself.
But first, a trip to an old friend – the National Trust Tea Room!
I ordered a hot chocolate – and went out into the rather damp garden. I was surprised it was empty. I quickly found out why – wasps! I did this Lyra crayon piece, a sort of update of the watercolour I did last time, under duress as wasps bombarded me. There were also some rather cute small birds, swallows? I wish they’d eaten the wasps!
I was trying out the Faber Castell A4 Mixed Media pad on this trip, I’d used it a few days before with a run through at Portraits At The Pub, but bought it a long time ago to try and given my beloved Fabriano Mixed Media sketchbook was almost full, I brought this one, and Daler Rowney Mixed Media pad. I think in future I’ll just take one.
So I headed into the castle itself – weird to have draw and photographed it so many times but not been inside…it’s a weird surreal jumble of planes, this is what they call ‘tumble’ – the walls and blocks of stone that were blown apart with gunpowder down the hill during the Civil War. You can see this in the de Chirico-esque brush pen piece I did, but first I did a technical pen piece – 0.35mm Faber Castell TG pen I think, with watercolour which I’m very proud of.
It started raining heavily again, I wanted to do another piece but none of the sheltered places had any decent views, so I perched by a slightly sheltered rock after one shower had passed, and did a ink piece – the aforementioned brush pen piece, a mix of brush and ink wash, and brush pen. Of course it started chucking down again, hence the textures, and then we were chucked out cos the place was closed.
Transcript
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Oh dear, I have to say to glad it’s not raining at the moment but it’s been more than 24
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hours of rain. There was a brief stop in yesterday when I was at Corfe Castle for a few hours and now
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it’s back to the grumpy weather and of course the weather reports were all like oh you know
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initially like 1% chance of rain and then it’s like 20% 30% and it starts raining so the weather
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reports lie and I have to say I’ve just done the most stupidest thing possible and if I’d
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if I could evacuate from here I would but of course it’s Friday so I’m stuck here because no
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trains train stroke otherwise known as the train driver’s weekend off plan because it’s
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although I support workers and their actions their actions are always on weekends and they
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tend to attack the people who either work at weekend or are not weekday workers and they’re
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not doing the actions on the weekdays I’m like you don’t really want anything to change you
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just want a weekend off don’t you but yeah I I was opening something with my pen knife in my tent
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near my inflatable mattress and you can guess what happened next so luckily or not luckily because
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I think about fucking everything like a scout which is my my pack so fucking heavy I do have a
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repair kit but now when you have two little things and I’ve used one of them so I hope that works
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otherwise I’m just gonna abort and try and find a B&B or something because it’s been so
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oppressive with sitting in my tent in rain and every day I’ve been delaying because morning
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just taps it fucking downpour and I get off late and I’m all achy and stuff from kind of
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basically being cold and wet and sitting in a tent which is not a good thing where it’s dry in my
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tent but of course everywhere else it was wet I even found a slug in my rucksack because I left it
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in the awning and I just I just sort of went to get open it and wash my hands yeah so there’s been
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lots of things going wrong but it’s just the oppressive fucking weather it’s been like ever
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since I got here two days ago it’s been mostly raining about to rain you know and I know the
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changeability of the weather around here the weather systems do not conform to the usual
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the usual changeability of the British weather the systems are so local here that even the
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hyperlocal I was trying one of the hyperlocal things called Carrotbot weather thinks it’s
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quite funny because it’s you can say it’s a communist or or kind of your political persuasion
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and then it’s like ratings up to homicidal or just extreme of course got mine extreme and it
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insults you as a meatbag when you open it and and kind of like has this attitude it’s quite funny
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but even that’s like nah that confounds it the systems are more than hyperlocal around here
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and so when the weather says oh it’s not raining look outside and it’s pouring it down
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or it’s raining and it’s just blazing the sunshine so I knew that I knew that around
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all worse in this area it could be raining all worse and blazing sunshine here or vice versa
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it’s fine I’m very aware of that but yeah the last couple days have been oppressive in
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extreme because usually it’s like it would chuck it down for a few hours and then it stops or you
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know try something else the weather on who’s on shuffle around here so that’s not helps but I did
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get some work done at Corfe Castle yesterday one of those will be seen as the artwork for this
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podcast so yes we have finally started four pieces I went into the castle itself for the first
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time ever I didn’t last time this time I have John’s spare National Trust card which is a bit naughty
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but you know he’s a I don’t know how legal that is but you know given what National Trust
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did to Hindhead the cafe at Hindhead and also what they did to Kynance Cove
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fuck them um but the Yekkers National Trust at the ramp for another day
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National Trust are not a bad conservancy well they are but they what they’ll do is they’ll
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destroy local businesses um with the obviously jobs in the local community and are using local
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produce and then put then say oh this is you know they’ll invent some reason that you know some kind
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of toad or newt is endangered or or that they they’re polluting the site and you know and it’s
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like well fair enough you know if a cafe or whatever is or toilets are our problems on a
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site of SSI fair enough but then they install their own and of course their own and farms in
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stuff from all around the country so there isn’t local produce in there in their cafes and tea rooms
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some but not necessarily uh their shops farm intact from China so it’s all like yes bullshit um
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so them and English Heritage and Heritage is what they did to Woodhenge
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I you know these these they pretend to be charities caring about the about the environment and they
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don’t they care about their business and you know and it’s all like oh you know is that so they
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they’ll destroy local businesses to put their own it’s what and the Kinan’s Corfe is the same
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they closed down the local shop and there’s B&B which I stayed at um a very rudimentary not we’re
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not talking about some kind of hyper hotel or whatever but they closed that down I don’t have
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to install their own shop they probably did and they did that with Hindad as well and destroyed
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the local cafe and put in their own cafe so it’s all bullshit
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so I’m left wondering what to do
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and yes local bikers don’t say hello
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um so yeah I’m left wondering what to do I’m I’m going to head off to the coast today
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let’s see if I can do some some of the walk to Kimmeridge I’m trying to try and do it in
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steps I was going to do you know overnight and wild camp and stuff but then I realized
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yesterday how heavy even just with just my art stuff how heavy this pack is
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there’s like no chance of taking me hours to do a mile and that’s what I was going to do that
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but I think looking at where the buses go and everywhere goes I probably am fine
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doing it in sections actually I thought it was too remote but
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you know as I’ve got the head start up to about Dancing Rocks um Scratchy Bottom it was
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and the uh dance and the Dancing Ledge and the ledge and so that’s a very
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so that’s what I’m trying to head to today and hope for the weather will hold off
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uh Corfe Castle’s great um I did a technical drawing or technical pen drawing or technical
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drawing a watercolour which is probably what I’m going to use for the artwork for this so I’ve got
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obviously as usual I took pictures of before and after for applied the watercolour
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the picture the watercolour one is a bit crap actually it’s not actually it’s better than that
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it’s just how it is when I’m uh uploading and taking pictures and the field I’m always 50 about
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whether I should do that I mean I like to show people my progress but actually the scanned pictures
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way better and it’s a bit like hey well I’ve seen that before I thought no you haven’t really because
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that is you’ve seen a shitty a shitty camera phone version um
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but you know the idea is mobile blogging and mobile travel
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chisels so we try and do that but so you can see that on my instagram which is
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finger at fingertrouble you can see a lot a lot of the
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photographs and things have taken along the way and you can see my past exploits at tjbaker.co.uk
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if anyone is listening to this well there are a few people listening to this I can see from the
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stats but not many but if you’re not aware of those things but yes and I did a Lyra crayon drawing
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and I did a ink piece which I need to take a picture of since I’ve got a sunshine and be a dry area
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to put it on because that’s the problem you know it’s okay at the moment it’s very grumpy it’s not
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chucking it down but it will you know I need a window where it’s not where where I’ve got a flat
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surface that isn’t drenched um things drying now my tent’s drying uh even the unfortunately
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I did I talked about the seam sealing I did the seam sealing and the bit I did that was
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the important bit dried in time I put it rather thickly on the top of the post because like well
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this is an area that could leak in future even though it’s sealed at the moment that bit didn’t dry
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that bit’s been rained on for days um I don’t know how that’ll affect the tent
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it’s not good seriously not good it might make it less waterproof I suppose um that’s still tacky
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that’s not good because you’re supposed to give it time to dry so we shall see about that and
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hopefully the dry day dry uh day today um will help but the problem is I’m camped under a tree
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and so I’m just getting massive splats of water even if it start raining I just I get rained on
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so queue traverses why does it always rain on me because I’m camped under a tree so yeah
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it’s going to take longer for that to dry annoyingly um it was the only place that was kind of away
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from all the rock walls and the uh emits with their big fuck off 4x4s and camper vans
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screaming children so you know it’s a nice part away and we have um deer on the site although we’ve
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got a uh a young young deer don’t know what the hell they’re called but also we have a doe who’s
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very protective of her deer and I think people have been feeding them because they’re very tame
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and so I got charged up by the doe for trying to take a picture of I don’t think it’s too close to the
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to the other one but it was like hello you’re supposed to be wild that’s banging on the fence
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like nope you’re not charging me well I threatened I said you’ll be shot because yeah I’m
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unfortunately that’s why you don’t feed should not feed wild deer people because they get a bit
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angsty when either you’re not fed or you know that means that they’re young get too close to
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the people and then they because I know better than to go to a go anywhere near a young deer
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because I know the mother will be near somewhere near but but the young deer has been going near
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to my tent so it’s not the case for me going near the nature the nature’s coming next to me um and
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that’s a problem because you know it’s quite cute but it’s also I don’t particularly want deer coming
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up and munching my food which is currently outside my tent because I’m in the space to put all my
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shit in my tent although given what’s happened with my backpack I’m really am thinking of
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of keeping things in the tent as much as possible but then there’s very little room to move inside
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the tent so anyway hopefully today’s gonna be better the light’s grumpy but at least it’s not
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pissing on me and I’ll speak to you soon
Friday started like Thursday with rain but then the first disaster struck.
The rain finally cleared so I made breakfast and at the same time made breakfast. Now I’d brought my favourite Schar Brioches and some Kabanos (Polish travel sausage, a bit like pepperami but better) and Leerdammer cheese that doesn’t go off quickly. AND like most Schar gluten-free products they are in these hard-to-open Earth-hating plastic packages. Like, the stuff cannot be opened by hand.
I had this Alpkit folding knife which is uselessly blunt, so I thought, I know, I’ll use my penknife which is sharp. I was sitting on my inflatable mattress…and you probably know where this is going.
The penknife also struggled to get through the bomb-proof packet, so used more force, and it right through and even though I obviously wasn’t do this directly on the mattress itself (I’m not that stupid) the extreme force and direction of that force meant I stabbed my Therm-a-rest mattress, which then made a depressing pssst noise. Fuck.
I was stuck there cos of the rail strike with a ruined mattress…no bother, I had brought the repair kit, so I’ll use that and hope it fixes it. So hopeful, I had a date with a bottom – Seacombe Bottom.
Nothing to do with Harry, those who have read Jaunt 1 will remember Seacombe Bottom, I bailed there because walking from Swanage via Dancing Ledge I ran out of water there, and pretty much crawled like those old cartoons of people n the desert the several hot thirsty miles to Worth Maltravers and the Square and Compass pub which was an oasis (although an oasis that has incredibly long queues, this is how I found you could refill your water at the toilet nearby).
This is why I carry a water filter and Oasis water purifier tablets, as I considered drinking the cattle trough water so I could continue the walk. It was partly my fault for also going on a walk on a hot day with only 500ml of water, but I had no idea of the terrain and how dry the coast is. There are two places to reliably get water on the 5-7 miles to Kimmeridge. Swanage and Kimmeridge. Everything else is miles inland and mostly time dependent bar that toilet at Worth.
I wanted to do a fairly short walk I could come back via the bus, so thinking that schlepping out to Kimmeridge was too far for the first proper day, and wary of doing what I did last time going too hard with the Uppy Downy jelly legs nightmare, I aimed for the few miles from Seacombe Bottom to Chapman’s Pool via St Alban’s Head and an interesting looking chapel.
So I took the 40 bus from Corfe to Swanage and got off before Acton, and partly retraced my steps to Worth Maltravers. It was like 2 years ago, the same massive queue at the Square and Compass, so I passed and refilled my bottle at the toilets up the road, and checked out the cafe which I didn’t use before, which didn’t have massive queues and had ice creams and gluten free cake!
I took the paths downwards to the Bottom – this was retracing my steps, past that same cattle trough and onto the bit I didn’t check out, the old quarry itself. It’s very impressive.
Seacombe Bottom
Transcript
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I’m just walking along the coast from Seacombe, what’s called Seacombe Bottom, nothing to do
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with Harry’s Seacombe, and that’s where last year, on two years ago, same last year, I
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boarded the walk I’m trying to do now, on doing now in bits, but I tried to get from
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Swanage to Kimmeridge on 500mls of water on a really blisteringly hot day, and that’s
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not recommended, that was Jaunt 1, and I got to Seacombe Bottom right out of the water
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and then boarded the trip and walked into where I was earlier, which is Worth Maltravers,
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so I took the bus towards, it’s funny, past Kingston, towards Acton, and yes, not that
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Kingston, not that Acton, but you know, I then walked to Worth Maltravers, across the fields
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and rode, and there’s a nice pub there called The Square and Compass, but the problem is that
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every time I’ve gone there, including that Sunday, where I was literally dying of thirst,
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I found a local toilet that had a tap, it’s always got massive queues, I don’t know why,
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so I didn’t actually go in there, I went into the tea shop, there’s like a tea and coffee shop,
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down the road, I’m not sure that was there before, I don’t remember, so got a nice cakey
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and talked to them, an ice cream and talked to them about walking, and they were talking,
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told me a story, a guy there told me a story about some people he saw that just in the train,
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he didn’t have any proper shoes or water or anything, and they said, oh, can we do this walk
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you know, get back by seven because we’ve got a booking for dinner, I was like, no,
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because this coast gets quite remote and it gets quite,
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you know, away from water or anything, I took a picture of the cattle,
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what are they called, thing, the watery cattle thing, which I’m going to the name was,
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where I looked at it two years ago, and when can I drink that, I don’t know,
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but that’s why I have a water filter and water sanitation tablets,
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with me on any of these longer walks, for that very reason,
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because I thought at the time if I’d had a water filter, I could have continued the walk,
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and it was annoying because it was like lunchtime or early afternoon, I could have done
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a lot of this walk, so yes, and I’ve checked, I’m going to have to do the Mupe Bay to Kimmeridge
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part now, not today, but Saturday or something, because I’ve got so used to coming around here
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in August, it being open the ranges, but the ranges are firing next week, so I’m not sure
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if they’ll be open on the next weekend after, but you know, it’s probably best if I do that
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Luckily, we’re camping at Bucknowle, I could actually walk to Kimmeridge, that’s a few miles,
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but that might be the best way of doing it, rather than trying to go down to Kingston and then
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heading to the coast, that’s kind of heading away from it, so you might be better to just walk
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that way, I think there is a trackway that goes towards that direction, so the trackway might
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then come, because I wanted to walk that trail anyway, so that might be quite a good thing,
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but start early, and I can start early if it’s not fucking chucking it down, and luckily today
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has been, apart from this morning, this horrible dreadful morning, has been pretty good,
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there was the guy in the tea shop told me it’s supposed to be like this for two weeks, and
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I hope that’s true, because if my air bed is not kaput, it’s always going to be
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worried this trip, that air bed, until I get it properly repaired, because the little field,
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I got several of those, little field repair things, but they, I don’t know how much they are,
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I don’t know how good they are, so we’ll see, I did a painting at Seacombe,
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that’s a very loose painting, which will be the artwork for this episode most likely,
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it’s, I was kind of experiment having to do something looser, because the problem is
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like the Mupe Bay painting, which was, you know, took several days to set up,
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you know, sort of scoping the place, and then coming back later in the trip, a bit like the
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St Gabriel’s Chapel one, I went back and did it, but it was a bit of a military operation to get
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the, oh, I’ll get there early, and get in there, because there’s the last bus out there, so you
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know, all that shit, apart from his focus too much on detail, and the detail is,
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he says, as his sketchbook flies open, hopefully it’s dried, he’s not,
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you know, too focused on detail, and I’m trying to do things a bit more abstract this time, a bit more
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eastward, or where eastman, or kind of,
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ah, it looks like even more quarry works, there’s all quarry works around here, so Seacombe,
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it was a quarry, I passed a quarry, and now I’ve got some more, and yeah, quite often got caves,
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you can’t go into, but that looks like quarry work, and there’s some more quarry work, and there’s
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also a gun enplacement at Seacombe, yes, and I had jelly legs earlier as well, so going down was like,
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or so I’m taking it as easy as possible, especially on descents, because obviously my legs are just
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not used to this amount of walking, usually they would be, but I’ve done less walking this year,
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so yeah, so I don’t want to repeat what happened last year, or I sort of was out in the middle of
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nowhere and my legs just gave, so anyway, speak to you soon.
Seacombe Bottom is one of the many quarries along this coast. Not the most famous – we’ll get to that one shortly, but like a lot of the ‘ledges’ it has impressive views. So after having a bite to eat with the view above with the crashing waves below, I did a quick piece of the opposite headland.
Not sure if it’s technical pen or fountain pen, it’s very intentionally loose and quick because I had a few miles walk head of me…and also I was trying to be more abstract, less detail-focused. Mupe Bay watercolours are fine, but I feel I get too bogged down in detail, and one of those would have ended the walk before it began!
So my cliff painting hymen broken for this year, I walked onwards – seeing a lot of quarries. One of those infamous quarries which ominously has a big DANGER CLOSED sign is Winspit Quarry. If you said ‘that looks like an alien planet’ then you’d be correct – it’s been used in Doctor Who to stand in for the planet Skaro in ‘Destiny of the Daleks’ and in the Blake’s 7 episode ‘Games’.
Many of the caves are closed and I didn’t go into the open ones, wary of that sign. It stopped being a quarry during the war, then it was a naval/air station – you can see the ruins of both the military and quarry buildings above.
Transcript
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Yes, it was the day after the walk. It was a good walk, although my legs are hurting
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I walked from Seacombe Bottom via a lot of quarries, like Winspit quarry, which is, I mean, we were going back there at some point, to do some drawings, like the ruins, although signs everywhere saying you’re not supposed to go in, I’m surprised they allowed people to go in, and most of the quarries along there, like Seacombe Bottom, and there was that one.
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There was quite a few quarries along the way, usually not allowed to go into the caves, but that one just had signs saying, danger, so I didn’t go in the caves, they’re not really caves, they’re man-made tunnels, and then I went to St. Albans Head, and the church there, which is 13th century St. Anthems, which is really cool,
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although, I mean, it’s not really much to draw there, it’s kind of like a lot of very, very old churches, just like a square, like a miniature castle, but you know, like a very reinforced walls, and then like a little chapel inside with no lights, you can’t really see anything,
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of course, classic, is there’s loads of, you know, the old style graffiti, I don’t know how 18th and 18th century, and 17th century, and the 19th century, people wandered around with their hammer and chisel seemingly, chiseling their names into things, and that, interestingly, about St. Albans Head is also there, I didn’t realize there’s this thing called the National Coast Guard Initiative,
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or something, or NCI, which is volunteer coast guards, they’ve got a station there, it’s weird because they’re looking at it thinking, oh, this is a big place for a wild camp, because a few of those, the quarries, Seacombe Bottom itself, which is also an ex quarry, it’s quite a lot of little nooks and crannies, and I was like, oh, I could wild camp there, it’s sort of a bit of a way, and there’s a really brilliant place just before, which again, seemed to be a ruined quarry working, as what could have been part of the old
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radar station that was there, because some of the first radar, one of the first radar stations was there, a part of the whole chain, and on the previous trip I went, I went to one of these, near, near Osbington, and some of the first radar was around here, so there’s a monument to that, but yeah, there’s coast guards there, so I don’t know if they’re at night, maybe not a good idea, because they might tell you off,
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they’re camping, that’s depends if they see you, and then I walked all around to Chapman’s Pool, I had not, had not been downy, it was, weird thing is walking down from worst, I had the jelly legs experience, it’s only on the going downs, up so fine, it’s the downs, it seems like my back and my legs were really hurting today, and they say they expend more energy going down than up, so it kind of makes sense, but
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I didn’t have that again, but it was, I then got to Chapman’s Pool, and I was thinking of going a bit further on, that was Emmett’s Hill, Emmett’s, interesting to be ants, and derogatory name for tourists, I don’t know if that was intentional, but then there’s a massive hill after that, and a massive cliff, and I was like, mmm, don’t think again, it was six o’clock, so I headed inland, and had a nice meal at Kingston,
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not that Kingston, there’s Kingston, Ontario, there’s Kingston on Thames, near which I live, and then there’s Kingston upon Hull, and there’s Kingston, Jamaica, there’s millions of Kingston’s, I don’t know where the stone is, but that, that was a really nice meal at the Scott Arms, I trekked myself, because I missed out on the Fish & Chips at the, I wasn’t going to get back in time, just about that, so 15 minutes maybe,
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to the campsite, because of the buses and things, it was like the bus kit was going to come about 7.30, I need to be back by 7.45, there’s no possible, I don’t know why the idea of, oh, they have a chip van that comes around once a week, and it comes around at seven o’clock, so early, and only for 45 minutes, so I had Fish & Chips there, it’s slightly more expensive, but you know, it was really nice, and the best, the best haddock I’ve had ever, or,
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one of them, and the chips were pretty good as well, so I was like, that was really nice, all because I wanted to get a bit lathered, because I knew I couldn’t face going back, to a deflating, well, possibly deflating, air bed, I didn’t want to see what the air bed was doing, it sort of had inflated when I left, and so I was like, hmm, but I could tell it deflated a bit, so I was like, hmm, that’s not good,
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and yes, yes, dear listener, I had a horrible night, shades of two years ago, because the weird thing is that this very campsite is where my old vango, and the site a bit cheaper than the Therm-a-rest I’m using now, gave up the ghost, but I managed to find someone who had discarded really, really, absolutely, really heavy, I wouldn’t try and carry something like that now, really heavy, kind of like a camper, car camper,
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mattress, which I was like, what saw me out to the end of that trip, now, the problem I’m having is that, the field repair kit doesn’t do shit for the Therm-a-rest, because of course I bought a repair kit, I bought the field repair kit, you can get a permanent repair kit, but that takes 24 hours to dry, and I don’t have it anyway, but you know, it wouldn’t help me,
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so at the moment I’m, I’m bodging it and seeing if I could do, I’m using a, the local shop had a, a Highlander PVC, you wouldn’t repair kit for those, for those airbeds, you know, those big, you know, blue, inflatable things, now I don’t know what the surface is of the Therm-a-rest, it’s like a, according to their website, it’s, there’s various, various blather about what the material is, but I think it’s polyester,
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and this is for PVC, and it’s, basically it smells a lot like the rubber-tired lube, I know it’s not rubber, but I’m sure probably rubber in is of, of, of, you know, bikes are probably not rubber anymore, but, so that’s, that’s drying at the moment, and I was then put some seam sealer around the edges, just for good measure, thinking, well it’s either one or the two, it’s either, it’s either,
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something more like a, I do think it’s, I don’t know, it’s like, a sil, silnylon, which is what tents made out of, but it’s some kind of, you know, polyester, some kind of plastic, some kind of plastic, but not rubber, so, we’ll see, that takes 11, 12 hours to dry, and I was going to, as I said in the previous thing, you go and, you know, urgently walk,
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um, the Kimmeridge 2, weak baby, which I’m going to have to try and do tomorrow now,
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because I’m too knackered, and I spent far too long, and I’m actually going to go into Swanage and see if I can get a bike repair kit, or if, if, if there’s, they have like an outdoor shop there,
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um, see if they have anything like, you know, that’s proper, proper shit for, for AirBid, I suspect they’re probably just got, kind of like, what I’ve got here,
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um, and yeah, I look to Amazon and say, if I get to be shipped to me, but, so, if, after the, the horrible night where it was deflating every, every two hours,
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um, you know, and I woke up and I’m, I’m literally almost on the ground, because it’s, it’s got, it’s got some,
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some kind of padding, but it’s, it’s, yeah, and I had a very bad night, and I don’t want to go off walking today, because it’s just, ouch,
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and I passed up on a shag as well, because I was, I was a guy I was talking to, uh,
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when I was like thinking, wouldn’t it be good to have a Grindr hook up? So, while this one is, while this one is, uh,
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is, um,
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happening, you know, sleep on a nice bed, and then, and then come back to this tomorrow,
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but the guy, who was umming and ahhing about it even though he was local, he’s like, oh, I’ll see you tomorrow, and actually,
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he should have, um, made the effort to,
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he should have made the effort, because now, um,
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I’m just too knackered to do anything, so as I, I’ve had to say, no, sorry, I’m too knackered, like, a bit, very much like,
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you missed your chance, mate.
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Um, it sounds a bit arrogant, but you know, he did, because if he’d been my knight in shining armour, and come and,
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and come and pick me up, and provided a place to stay for the night, that would have been brilliant. Um, don’t really do that, but,
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uh, I’ve had people do that with me,
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on holidays and things, which is really naughty, but in this case, it was an emergency.
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I did tell him that, and no, no,
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his loss
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but, so, it’s actually sunshine now, brilliant, the typical grumpy, horrible morning, um,
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we’ve got sunshine now, uh, it’s supposed to be possibly raining in the afternoon, so I have to leave the airbed in the tent,
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maybe it’ll, um, warm it up in the tent more, I don’t know, hopefully, I will have to leave them.
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The thing’s open, so I don’t get gassed when I go in, because I’ve mixed so many of the chemicals, like, you know, the, the, the,
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the PVC glue, and the cyanone,
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it’s a bit like a toxic soup,
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but I’m hoping the patch works, because, you know, the field repair did work, it just, it just worked very badly, it just
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deflated slowly over about two hours. It needs to be properly, uh, fixed, uh, and that for that,
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you either need a kit or to send it off to Therm-a-rest in Ireland, so, anyway.
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So,
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Not much I can do tonight, because I’m trapped here, because of the railway.
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Strikes, thank you, RMT. Um,
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no thanks thing, um, so we’ll see, so unfortunately, if this doesn’t, these fixes don’t work and I don’t find a,
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maybe a kit to use last, later on tonight, after 12 hours, if that doesn’t work, I need to get some bloody, just blood, some bloody duct tape,
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even duct tape would probably help. I’ve got this, um, SilNylon tape for the tent tears, and it doesn’t stick to it, so,
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but yeah, anything, anything, I’ll just slow it down, slow it down for a few hours, more, just so I can get some sleep.
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So, if that doesn’t work, I’m going tomorrow, I can’t really, this place has beat me again, um,
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it’s just, it’s a shame this weather’s so lovely, but I’m so, so knackered. Um,
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um, yeah, so, we shall see tomorrow. It’d be shame, but then, as I say, it’s a curse of the even numbered,
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the curse of the even numbered, um, Jaunts, but then again, uh, it’s my fucking fault, but for,
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for cutting something on the pen knife next to the,
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you know, the classic thing is, I was trying to, I was trying to get into a packet or something,
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oh, oh, there’s a pen knife, and of course it went straight through, and you get, and then into the mattress,
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it’s like, the most expensive sandwich ever. I’ll speak to you soon.
So gingerly taking the path over the caves – great view until you think of what is below and how fragile it is…you head onto St Alban’s Head aka St Aldhelm’s Head (seems to vary in names?), past many other quarries and signs of military buildings long gone. I was thinking how wonderful some of this might be for wild camping – maybe Winspit is a little too spooky and public, like Seacombe you could see signs of fires, but some of these undercliff places might be good if hidden from the path.
That idea changed when I stumbled on the headland itself and found not only a memorial to the past advances to radar made there but a manned National Coastwatch Station! No water though.
It seems not only had there been stations on our old friend the Chain Low/Home system (remember the place I found in Jaunt 3 at Ringstead that was a historic radar bunker site oddly earmarked to be holiday homes?) but also other advances to radar here as the Telecommunications Research Establishment was nearby.
Also standing watch by the coast is the 13th century chapel of St Aldhelm, which I guess is the proper name for the headland. This you can tell is an an old chapel cos of the the small windows and doors, square and reinforced walls, more like a mini castle. In fact there’s some debate whether it was intended t be a chapel, and might have been connected with Corfe as a sea lookout.
Onwards to Chapman’s Pool over the surprisingly named and surprisingly steep Emmett’s Hill, then via a rather odd Royal Marines Memorial, less so the stone bench but the arty words set into the stone walling – not sure who those were about, reminds me of an artist who used stone signs with words in their work but his name escapes me.
Looking at the steep hill after Chapman’s Pool, I was relieved I didn’t have to climb it today, and took the path inland up trackways. I got to Kingston and the church bells were ringing (with the ravens cawing along in time!). I was surprised to find a pub serving food – the Scott Arms – right next to the bus. So I took advantage of that, a nice meal, very quiet, and then a short amble to the bus stop.
It was dark by then so I was worried that the bus might go straight past, so I put my light on and waved him down using the the old rural bus trick of stepping into the road. I then got back to the campsite late, to find that that the inflatable mattress fix didn’t work, that the Therm-a-rest Field Repair kit was total bollocks and th mattress went down every few hours. It was not a good night’s sleep!
Also wanting to go to the ranges next, I checked the times, and was shocked to find they were firing all next week – apparently they restart weekly firing when the kids go back to school. Shit, this weekend was the only time for a week to go see Tyneham and do the Arish Mell to KImmeridge part of the walk via the army ranges, but I also needed to go find something better to fix this air mattress as well – likely losing a day.
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