Day 9: Maiden Newton to Lyme Regis

Monday was our most physically demanding day so far. Legs ached after 11 hours of pretty tough walking.

But we're not complaining because it was also the most stunning day so far.

It all started back at the house of our CouchSurfing host Jenny. She very kindly drove us to Dorchester station early this morning so we could catch the train back to the start point at Maiden Newton.

From Maiden Newton we took bridlepaths and a former railway line to Bridport. So far all good!

Once the route hit the coast we started to climb... a lot! We got to the summit of Golden Cap which is the highest point on the south west coast path. The second and third steepest were not far away! But only after we dropped right down to sea level to cross some little stream, then up again. 

Due to footpath diversions where there had been collapsed bridges and landslides, the walk ended up being a few miles longer than we expected and we only just made it to Lyme Regis before dark.

Hard day, but inspiring!

Day 8: Shillingstone to Maiden Newton

We left Shillingstone armed with a packed lunch (thanks to Carol from the Willows tea rooms) knowing that there would be little chance of encountering any shops or pubs or other places for getting food or water up on the Ridgeway.

The Ridgeway, as the name suggests, is mostly high up with spectacular views over Dorset. However there are plenty of times where we had to change from one ridge to another. This involved significant dropping down into a valley in order to climb back up to the next ridge.

We are building towards the kinds of ups and downs we're likely to encounter on the coast path in the next few days, so we see it all as a nice progression. We definitely did this walk in the right direction - heading towards the west - both because of building up to the tougher walks and because the cold easterly winds are behind us.

Day 7: Berwick St John to Shillingstone

Saturday's walk felt like spring was finally in the air after all the unseasonably chilly and wet weather recently.

Starting with a lovely view over the village of Berwick St John after climbing the hill and then past lush meadows and through woodland, into green valleys and over ridges.

There were quite a lot of ascents and descents throughout the day, but it didn't feel like we'd been climbing as much as it looks from the route profile on our "Share Your Adventure" map -
http://www.shareyouradventure.com/map/os/2WalkTo/London-to-Totnes-Walk

We landed a lucky find with accommodation in a lovely 18th century cottage in Shillingstone.