Day 29 - Seatown, West Bay, Abbotsbury,

Wednesday 14th August
Total: 566+  / Daily: 22m  / Mist & Showers /

I woke to voices but I could only just see the sun rising in the gap between the ground and my fly sheet. Being on a high point this meant it was a little before the 'official' sunrise time, surprising to hear others at that time. After getting up and hearing the snippets of conversation for 10 minutes, I realised they were coming from the caravan park below, a couple of miles away. The wind conditions must have been perfect for it. It was bizarre to look at tiny specs and hear words.

I took a decent break in a cafe in Bay West called Ellipse watching the rain and wind steadily increase outside. I hadn't planned on eating, just a phone charge and coffee but like usual, that plan went out the window. 11m from here to be on track for the early finish, however there are quite a few serious climbs in a couple of days. Yesterday's 27m has put me ahead, I'll try and maintain that. 'The clouds roll in, it starts to rain, I put my waterproofs on. It's blowing a gale, my spirits fail, I try to sing this song ....' (reference to the song from Day 20). Time to venture outside!

The afternoon was fairly uneventful. It rained a lot and I walked alongside the everlasting Chesil Beach. The path goes inland as the beach is a frustrating 7 miles of shingle with no way off except the ends. It is also closed at this time of year for the bird nesting season. The inland path snaked its way around the edges of farmland and arrived at the edge of The Fleet (the large lake formed by Chesil beach). The decibel level certainly suggested there was a lot of birds but I didn't see a great deal more than usual, the fact that I was hiding in my waterproofs might have had something to do with that. My guide often uses the words 'seaward' and 'landward' when describing the path and I was hoping it would suggest walking on the Fleetward side, but that you can go your own way ...

I walked for far too long today and found myself walking on the pavement of the A354 by streetlight at 9pm. I'd eaten earlier beside one of the 5 caravan parks that I passed today and wasn't massively hungry. I was on the hunt for somewhere to sleep but didn't want to pitch to close to a road. The path passed dangerously close to a Chinese take away and I left with a bag of prawn toast.

What happened next broke just about all of my walking rules and would have been comical to watch, fortunately there was no one else around. The path climbed steeply out of the town and I walked with my headtorch on guiding the way (having left the streetlights behind). The prawn toast was swinging wildly on one arm as I was using my poles and the other arm struggling to hold onto its pole whilst looking on Google Earth for nearby grassy spots. I was eating the prawn toast and singing 'Portland by Middle Brother' whilst climbing the steep path with an edge on one side. I was in a surprisingly good mood and found a great spot next to a diversion sign on the edge of an old quarry. (Navigating a diversion in the dark would have been a disaster).