From Bournemouth to Swanage

Sunday night I was reading a little about the history of England. I read about the Saxons and the Angles and then I read about the Romans. There is a stone wall at the top of England that the Romans built called the Hadrian's Wall. Its still standing and there is a path that you can walk. I was thinking wow that sounds like a cool walk. It takes a few days to do. Then I remembered that there was a really nice walk here called the South West Coast path. Part of that path goes along the Jurassic Coast. Then I got this brilliant idea that I could walk to Swanage and do a little bit of the path at a time. I googled walking directions and went to Mardy with this idea. I naively said to him "Raven and I are walking to Swanage, I would like you to come but if you can't we're still going." He thought for a bit. I think he was thinking that if he didn't go I would end up in Christchurch which is completely the wrong direction. He said that he could put off doing homework for another day and said that he would come with us. Monday morning I won't lie, I was a little nervous. We got all ready and we left our place at 9. We walked to the Bournemouth Pier and walked along the beach on a really nice path. After an hour of walking we turned around and it looked like we had hardly moved. We took the ferry to cross Poole Harbor and on the ferry we met a women who had been walking from Dover. She was walking to raise awareness for autism or something. She had a sign on her backpack but I wasn't able to get a very good look at it.



On the other side of the Harbor there was a sandy path along the beach. We weren't able to push the stroller along it so we stuck to the road. Not far up we saw a map on the side of the road. On this map there was clearly a path that lead to the beach. Wishfully thinking we thought that maybe if we took this path it was take us to a nicer path that would then lead us all the way to Swanage. This path that we went on that lead to the beach wasn't very nice. On both sides it was very swampish.
A few spots on the path it was completely covered with gross looking stagnate water puddles with rocks and logs left for you to take across. We saw a man with with a long grey braid in his hair. He was dress slightly hippyish and was only too happy to talk, I asked him what the path was like up ahead. He said there were about three of these puddles and that Mardy would have to carry the stroller across. No problem. We got further us this path and it turned into Sand. Not fun. Now the map had said that this path leads to a Naturist area and it had pictures of birds and flowers on it. Okay so this place is for bird watchers. Then we saw this sign.



Maybe Naturist isn't what we thought it was. Since the path was very sandy I said that I would walk up to the beach to see if there really was a nice path to walk along. When i got to the top of the sand dune there were old naked people in every direction. Our suspicions were correct. Path or no path we were getting out of there. Mardy carried the stroller around the puddles and when we saw another lone male hiker Mardy asked me if I thought that guy knew that it was a nudist beach. By the look of him I said "oh ya".

Shortly after the whole naturist experience we stopped along the highway to eat our lunch. We continued walking when Mardy noticed an iPhone on the side of the road. It still worked and it wasn't locked so we tracked down the owner. She said she was just in Swanage so we told her where we were walking and she met us on the side of the road. She said we restored her faith in humanity for returning it to her. By this time were were so very close to our destination and my body was shutting down. I had a blister on my left baby toe, my shoes were filled with sand and my right knee said it didn't want to walk anymore. We kept hiking anyway.

Finally we reached our destination. I should have been so excited, I should have had a second wind, I should have wanted to play at the beach but all I wanted to do was sit down and not move. We ate fish and chips along the beach and then we went to funworld to use the facilities. Mardy ordered some hot chocolate for me and we sat on the nice comfy couch in the sunlight. After that we waited a half hour for our bus at the bus stop and then went home.

My body hurts but I am so glad that we did it. I could never have done it without Mardy. I think Raven and I would have made it to the ferry and then had to take the bus the rest of the way. We would have missed out on the nudist beach and that lady would never have gotten her phone back. I am so excited for the many more adventures we'll have here as a family. We are having a great time exploring our new home.

This is the view behind us after we'd walked for an hour. Low visibility due to ash cloud.


Raven was such a champ the entire trip. Man I love that girl!


This is one of the many huge houses on Sandbanks. Sandbanks is a very rich area in Poole that is built on a narrow strip of sand. On one side there is the beach on the other its the harbour. The foolish man built his house upon the sand.....


Raven on the ferry




Such a lovely day for a walk


If I wasn't so tired and in so much pain I would have taken more pictures of Swanage. We'll I've posted several before so I don't feel so bad.