| Date: Location: Walk Leader: Participants: Distance: Parking: Lunch: | 14th December 2016 Langton Matravers to Durlston Country Park Peter Peter, Clive, Ray 7 miles Langton House Kings Arms ★★★☆☆ |
As an HPB member I thought it would be OK if I used their car park. There is however another public car park just a couple of hundred yards past Langton House.
It was a lovely morning ideal for walking as we set off at about 10:15. There are some signed paths that are not shown on the OS maps that cut off the corner as we approached the coastline and this saves dropping too far down the quite steep hill.
It was a lovely morning ideal for walking as we set off at about 10:15. There are some signed paths that are not shown on the OS maps that cut off the corner as we approached the coastline and this saves dropping too far down the quite steep hill.
| The view back along the coast to the west was just beautiful, shows what a great area this is for walking. There was a pleasant sea breeze and everything seemed almost perfect. The we joined the path heading east only to find ourselves in very slippery mud. The cattle had really churned the path up and it was a bit treacherous in places. We zig-zagged our way between the path and the fields alongside trying to find the best ground to walk on and the route shows this fairly clearly. |  Looking West |
Close to the old visitor centre we found some nice picnic tables where we sat and ate too much. Orange and almond cake supplied by Peter, mince pies from Clive and miniature Xmas puddings from Ray made for a substantial meal.
It was quite wet under foot moving across the fields to South Barn but the path from there was a lot better. Through the Townsend Nature Reserve the path seemed to become very vague but we found our way to the edge of the Holiday Park. Here the entrance is not where it is shown on the OS Maps and we had to hunt around to find it. In the Park it is almost impossible to find an easy way through. It is very poorly signed and we ended up in several cul-de-sacs. Considering that this is part of the Priests Way it could do with some improvement. There was a fair bit more mud walking across the fields back to the car and we would probably have been better off sticking to the Priests Way instead of turning off at Belle Vue Farm.
This was a good varied walk but the mud made it seem much further than it really was.
Lunch was at the Kings Arms. This is a very pleasant old fashioned pub with friendly locals, friendly staff and good food at reasonable prices. Peter and Ray had steak and kidney pudding with chips and veg for £9.50. One drawback was that they don't serve soup so Clive had to have a sandwich!
It was quite wet under foot moving across the fields to South Barn but the path from there was a lot better. Through the Townsend Nature Reserve the path seemed to become very vague but we found our way to the edge of the Holiday Park. Here the entrance is not where it is shown on the OS Maps and we had to hunt around to find it. In the Park it is almost impossible to find an easy way through. It is very poorly signed and we ended up in several cul-de-sacs. Considering that this is part of the Priests Way it could do with some improvement. There was a fair bit more mud walking across the fields back to the car and we would probably have been better off sticking to the Priests Way instead of turning off at Belle Vue Farm.
This was a good varied walk but the mud made it seem much further than it really was.
Lunch was at the Kings Arms. This is a very pleasant old fashioned pub with friendly locals, friendly staff and good food at reasonable prices. Peter and Ray had steak and kidney pudding with chips and veg for £9.50. One drawback was that they don't serve soup so Clive had to have a sandwich!
 Durlston Lighthouse |  View Over Swanage |
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