Near Hardy Monument to crossing with Macmillan Way and return

 After a couple of days of shorter walks and other (very enjoyable) activities, it was time to do some serious walking. Our choice of starting point was easy, back at the car park that we’d reached a year and three days ago at SY616878, which seems to be known as Smitten Corner. It’s a few hundred metres below the Hardy Monument, but the Hardy Monument car park itself is not on the route of the Jubilee Trail while the Smitten Corner car park is. Our choice of end point was pretty random, an attempt to split the distance we needed to cover between Smitten Corner and Toller Porcorum fairly evenly into two, and at the same time have the option of a slightly different outward and return routes on each walk. Today’s end point is pretty easy to identify on the ground, but not so easy to describe in words; it’s at SY486919 and where the Macmillan Way and Jubilee Trail cross, but most obviously on the ground, it is just about underneath a power line, so look out for the pylons!

This was a very enjoyable walk, better than either of us had expected. We didn’t have particularly happy memories of the area around the Hardy Monument from last year, probably because we had wet weather on the second half of that walk - but the weather today was glorious. Although 9.5 miles is nothing like as far as we used to walk, and the going today was mostly relatively easy, we have been trying to build our walking distances after some problems with my feet last year and we were very pleased with the outcome.  To achieve this – and still be able to walk tomorrow – I did take appropriate precautions like using my walking poles and changing my socks every 90 minutes or so, and in the evening I gave my right foot a good long soak to alleviate the impact of where two toes had rubbed together, causing the nail of one toe to cut into the other.  I won't bother you with any more details about my feet!

The path from Smitten Corner headed north, descending through a delightful wood. There were a few dogwalkers about, but we could hear conversation and couldn't work out where it was coming from; perhaps there was a campsite up in the wood?  We left the wood but it was still lovely; we were in a valley which took us past paddocks in which horses were grazing and on to a pretty (new) house called Luscombe Down and then Luscombe Farm. As we passed the horses, a man was up in the paddock with them and we realised, some time later, that the man was walking behind us with  one of the horses,  presumably heading to the house or farm. Luscombe Farm had a number of outbuildings and there was a sculpture that looked to be constructed from Portland Stone (which is very plausible, the quarries on the Isle of Portland are not that far away) and, past the farm, there were some amusing small sculptures, including a carved bird and a disconnected hand, pointing up to the farm.

We crossed a road and took a track on the other side. We couldn't immediately see our path because it was behind a van on which a man was working. However, once we were on the path,  we were soon crossing open rolling downs, now heading west. Over to our right was "Big Wood" and the attractive house of Big Wood Lodge. We could see  the road we were heading towards and we eventually reached a surprisingly busy junction of several minor roads, with a signpost which confirmed we were at White Hill. Over the junction, we had to concentrate to ensure we took the correct route, though actually our outward track was the obvious one (the track along which we would approach on our return to this point was rather less obvious).

We continued across the downs and alongside a wood and began to notice groups of prehistoric barrows. We knew that we were heading towards the Poor Lot Barrows, a collection of 44 burial mounds dating from about 1500 BC. The barrows are on both sides of the busy A35 which we were approaching and just as we reached a house on the right with yappy dogs, a sign on the left indicated the entrance to the main English Heritage site (although the site abuts the A35 you can't access it from the road),  We spent some time exploring the site, learning about the different types of barrow.

We returned to the route of the Jubilee Trail and looked for the way out onto the A35. That was easier said than done, we just couldn't see a way through, and by now the dogs we getting very agitated and both they and the owner appeared, to see what we were up to. It took a while to convince the owner that we weren't intending to trespass. but neither did we want to go back the way we had come. Eventually, we realised that the exit route was out past two OpenReach vans that were parked close together and almost completely blocking the track we wanted, and when we squeezed our way out onto the main road, we realised that the vans belonged to men who were working on the verge. Thus the route finding difficulty we'd had encountered was presumably only a temporary effect.

We might have reached the A35, but we still had to cross it. It's a horribly busy road and we were close to a bend, so  visibility wasn't great. After walking up and down the verge a bit to find the safest place we eventually got across, and took a minor road on the other side, signposted as leading to Compton Valence and Maiden Newton. After a short distance we turned left onto a footpath, which took is across fields towards the line of pylons that had been visible for some time. We were initially to the right of a field boundary then we passed to the other wide of it, now separated by the rest of the field by an electric fence. And then we were there, underneath the pylons, with a sign on a gate marking the route of the Macmillan Way to the north-east.

However, we were heading in the opposite direction, to the south west. We took an initially rather indistinct track in the opposite direction. The track became much more distinct and then joined a minor road. There has been a rare breeds centre here, but there was no real indication that it was still here - though there were some attractive sheep that might have been a rare(ish) breed. Some of the buildings in the hamlet of Kingston Russell are somewhat derelict, which is a pity, because it has clearly been an attractive place. We continued along the lane back to the A35. It was a tricky road to cross here too but at least we could see a reasonable distance in both directions.  

On the other side of the A35, a track led straight ahead, past a farm, and climbed. Towards the top of the hill we turned left, still on the route of the Macmillan Way, and continued along the top of the ridge. We reached more prehistoric mounds and stopped on one for lunch, enjoying the antics of some black lambs in an adjacent field.  The Macmillan Way headed downhill from this point, towards Whatcombe Down to the south, but after lunch we continued along the ridge. It was enjoyable walking, with good views to the A35 and that line of pylons beyond. Still in the valley to the north, but closer at hand, we passed what looked like a farm with a small quarry immediately behind it. 

The land dipped away to Pitcombe Down to the south, but still we continued straight ahead, until eventually we emerged close to the track we had followed from White Hill this morning, and from here we retraced our steps. Heading in the direction we were going now (east and then south), we could see the Hardy Memorial for much of the time, though photographing it was difficult because of the Sun's direction.  Later, passing through the valley south of Loscombe Down, Richard realised he'd missed a call on his phone. He stopped to check it out; we probably wouldn't normally bother but it was only a couple of weeks since a rather nasty incident in which a phone caller pretended to be our bank and thus to defraud us of a substantial amount of money. Fortunately, Richard spotted that something was suspicious and they didn't get away with it. But we were being very careful (though, with the benefit of hindsight, we think that this missed call was probably the IT Department of Dorset Wildlife Trust trying to fix the wifi in the cottage we were renting!).

The rest of the walk back to the car was straightforward, though we didn't manage to find anywhere to sit for an apple, so we had our snack back at the car instead.  We had plenty of time to do something else today, so we drove up to the car park next to the Hardy Monument itself (hence the photo at the top of this page) before enjoying a visit to  Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens. The short drive from the Hardy Monument to the Abbotsbury Subtropical Gardens took us through the village of Abbotsbury. We'd been here before when walking the South West Coast Path; indeed, today we drove past the place we stayed from 28th April to 29th April 2013, in a distinctive house with a curved corner (it had been the Abbotsbury Tea Rooms then, but I'm not sure if it still operates as a tea room and guest house). However, the village of Abbotsbury was even busier than I remembered.