Abbotsbury to Portland Bill

We slept very well and woke to a sunny morning - and it remained sunny all day. Lyn cooked us a lovely breakfast - Richard managed to put away a croissant in additional to fruit, cooked breakfast and toast! We left Abbotsbury Tea Rooms shortly before 9am, walked down to the shop and bought Dorset pork pies for lunch, then walked back to the Swannery to rejoin the South West Coast Path.

The first part of today's walk was along a ridge and then through undulating countryside - most attractive, skirting woods and through meadows. Fairly early on we encountered more sheep and lambs, with a lamb separated from its mother in front of us. Unfortunately Richard was so busy worrying about the lamb that he twisted his ankle as he negotiated a stile. Thankfully he still managed to complete today's long leg, though he was hobbling a bit - the lamb was fine! Later on, the problem was mud...

We reached The Fleet, the stretch of water behind Chesil Bank. The Fleet is usually referred to as a lagoon, though it is connected to the sea at Ferry Bridge. It was peaceful and more attractive than I'd expected. The path followed close to the water's edge, around the edge of agricultural land. But I don't think it was walkers straying from the path that has caused the oil seed rape to fail (as a sign implied) - it has clearly been a difficult season. We passed Rodden Hive, Langton Hive Point and cut off the peninsula of Herbury to Gove Cove and Moonfleet.

Just before the campsite at East Fleet Farm there were some most conveniently placed picnic tables and we stopped here for lunch. From a distance, we could see the red flags, indicating that the firing ranges at Tidmoor Point were closed, and we could both see and hear the firing taking place. It wasn't a problem - the diversion is no further than the official route of the path. Littlesea Holiday Park was more difficult to negotiate, with several muddy bits in this area. Then we had to walk around the 'Royal Engineers' Bridging Hard', presumably where they practise building bridges onto beaches, like Chesil Bank!

The Fleet was getting noticeably narrower, and at one point the path took us down onto the mud flats and up the other side, which was fun. What was not fun was a couple of sections of really squelchy mud on the path. On one occasion there was no real option but to walk straight through, and the mud went over my walking boots. Soon after, we crossed a couple of landslips across the path, which caused us to wonder about the future of the upmarket static caravans very close to the path.

We reached Ferry Bridge and walked on a pavement alongside the causeway as far as the Chesil Beach Visitor Centre, refurbished last year (perhaps for the Olympics?) and whose taste* Cafe (which we discovered on returning home was opened just six weeks ago) was an excellent source of chocolate brownies and tea! The Isle of Portland was clearly visible in front of us, technically a 'tied island', joined to the mainland by Chesil Bank (which is technically a tombolo - a spit joined to land at both ends). We realised that the buildings in Fortuneswell that we had seen in the distance and assumed to be industrial were mostly very modern. Sailing events were held in Portland Harbour at last year's 'London' Olympics, based at the Weymouth and Portland National Sailing Academy at Osprey Quay and there was much redevelopment as a result.

Feeling much refreshed, we left the visitor centre, crossed the road and walked along the line of a disused railway, with good views to the National Sailing Academy and to the section of coast around Durdle Door where we will walk in May. The Coast Path was signposted off into Osprey Quay, but that's the clockwise direction. Despite the fact that Roland Tarr's National Trail Guide tries to send you round Portland clockwise, we wanted to continue in the anticlockwise direction of our walk so far, with the coast to our right. So we continued along the road to Chiswell, up to Chesil Cove.

The views of Chesil Bank were good from here, and every time we looked back as we climbed steeply, the views got better and better. We reached the cliff top and walked a short distance before, as expected, we reached a 'path closed' sign (there is anxiety about the stability of the path at two places on the west coast of Portland). What we didn't know was what they would recommend as a diversion - they sent us into Tout Quarry, which was fascinating, complete with its sculpture trail.

The diversion was well signposted in all but one place, but at that point a couple of walkers coming towards us told us the right direction. Amazingly, one of these walkers, another Richard, was someone I know from work, though I didn't have the presence of mind to say 'hello' at the time (a later email confirmed that Richard and his wife had indeed been in this location at this time).

We scrambled our way along the signed diversion back to the coast path, and some glorious high level walking ensued, with just one more minor diversion. We reached Weston - the houses here look pretty grim, but the coastal walking remained excellent. The strata of Portland Stone underlying Portland dip gently to the south, so the cliffs get lower and the landscape became gentler. Past Weston there was just the eyesore of what looked like a huge factory in front of us - this turned out to be the Southwell Business Park, but it was built as the Admiralty Gunnery Establishment. In Portland, Oregon they use the bumper slogan ‘Keep Portland Weird’ and apparently similar car stickers have been used on the Isle of Portland too (see Geoff Kirby's website). I can see why – it isn’t a pretty, pretty place, but it is full of atmosphere and I am grateful that the South West Coast Path comes this way (it didn’t until 2003).

We found ourselves approaching Portland Bill with its three lighthouses, small number of houses and a few MoD buildings. Why three lighthouses? Apparently the Old Higher Lighthouse (Portland's first lighthouse - first lit in 1716, later the summer residence of Dr Marie Stopes and now a private house) and the Lower Lighthouse (now a bird observatory) used to work together, but both were replaced by the current taller Portland Bill Lighthouse in 1906.

We had expected it to be after 6pm when we got to Portland Bill, and Kathy Smith had asked us not to arrive at Fairview Cottage before 5.30pm - and at various stages earlier in the day we had thought we would be very much later. However we had made faster progress than expected down the Isle of Portland, so we stopped for a while. Then we continued down to Portland Bill and looked at the Portland Bill Lighthouse and the Trinity House (‘TH’) marker beyond. We also walked round to 'Pulpit Rock'.

About 5.45pm we wandered over to the Old Coastguard Cottages. It was easy to work out which one was Fairview Cottage (the middle one of the lowest terrace) and the instructions around to the back garden were also very clear. Kathy welcomed us and made us a cup of tea. Her husband was out taxi driving. We had noticed The Pulpit Inn before going to Fairview Cottage, but it looked distinctly closed. However, not only did it open at 6.30pm, it served a very good range of food. We had fisherman's pie and cider. After eating we photographed the sunset over the Pulpit Rock then we returned to Fairview Cottage.

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