.....I bought an OS map on the way down to Dorset and stupidly looked at it.

It occurred to me, whilst showering this morning, that my idea of a holiday, isn't the norm. I couldn't imagine spending 2 weeks in 1 place or contemplate more than 1 hour lazing on a beach. The reason this came to mind is that it's Summer and my day trips have just started.
Last weekend, I decided to spend investigating local features. It dawned on me that I'd never visited Stowe Country House and Gardens. I've lived around it for many many years but not even thought of visiting, so last Sunday was the day.
A day isn't long enough to view Stowe but it was enough to show me that it is worth seeing more of. I enjoyed it and it is certainly a place I would recommend but I was not enamoured or in awe of it in the same way that I am with, say, Hampton Court, Puzzlewood or Kenilworth Castle. My youngest daughter was my usual companion and she took lots of pictures, using my camera and often the shots I wanted to take. I am very sparing on the shots, I only take those that I can see, I usually go somewhere and take maybe 10 to 15 photos, sometimes 30 but never anymore than that. My daughter is trigger happy and I have a camera full of pictures and a flat battery. However, some of the pictures we both took are lovely so I am wondering if I misjudged Stowe and it is really glorious and maybe it was me and a funny mood, I'll let you know when I do a return visit.

Yesterday was Sunday and that was the start of my real day trips. I gave my youngest the choice of where to go. I wanted to go to Puzzlewood and see it in all it's Summer glory but she decided that we should go to Dorset and specifically Blue Pool, Lullworth Cove and Durdle Door. These are places we visited last year so I knew what to expect and that the wonderful Corfe Castle would be en route.
We meant to leave at 5a.m but both overslept so we didn't leave till after 6. This put us at Corfe Castle for 9.15. For those that have never been there, you must go. It is a ruined Castle on a hill, at the base is the village of Corfe Castle. The Castle is amazing to see (with an even more incredible and bloody history), so much so that I'm not even going to bother to try and describe it, take a look at my flickr page or look it up. The shot I wanted to take was from a railway bridge towards the Castle and capturing the steam locomotive that ferries people to Swanage via Corfe. Unfortunately I made my daughter climb a hill so I could take some pictures of the Castle from an equivalent height and she refused to walk any more. So it was onwards to Durdle Door on Dorset's jurassic coast. It is quite simple a huge natural stone arch in the Sea. It must be nearly 200 ft high and for some reason I find it impossible to photograph. I think I find the contrasts too difficult to deal with so I thought that HDR's may be a good way to capture them. The sun came out and my daughter kicked off her shoes and paddled in the water. The cliff behind Durdle Door, Swyre Head, is imposing and white. The sky was blue with white clouds and this huge chalk cliff, it was impossible to not to get a good picture, all the ingredients were there, laid out in a way that all you had to do was point and shoot.
I made a mistake, I bought an OS map on the way down to Dorset and stupidly looked at it. My eyes alighted on the words "Waterfall, Egmont Bight". "Wassat?" Thought I and texted my wife. She sent back an incredible picture of a huge waterfall spilling into the Sea over a cliff. That was it, that was where we were going next. After an hour we had travelled in various circles and little dirt tracks into nowhere and we came across and carpark near to where the falls are shown on the map. I was clever enough to ask the first trekkers if they knew of the falls and an old man told me that we had to go to Swyre Head (a different one to the Durdle Door one), hang a left, then a right onto a farm track and follow that. It was apparently quite a walk. Now I run in the mornings and this was an old man, how difficult could it be? I looked at the map and we marched along a path, down a steep slope and after 2 miles I realised we were in a farmer's fields and not on a footpath. The barbed wire fences gave me a clue.
The only choice was to walk 1/2 a mile and scale a sheer wall of mud, brambles and thistles and hang on to a barbed wire fence to stop from falling. This took an hour or so and was worse than running a half marathon. Once at the top I realised that we weren't even halfway there and the prospect of following the path down the cliff and walking the next 3 miles to the falls, followed by the walk back was too much, this would be a day trip in itself, so I never made it but it is on my hitlist.
From here we went to Blue Pool. A forest with a pool that is blue, it's all in the name, clever that. It is a beautiful place and I recommend it to anyone. It is peaceful, scenic and tucked away from the milling crowds. It is great to relax and get away from it all and is a superb place to take photographs. I didn't take very many this time as the weather was less than perfect and my time, as always, was limited.
My next quest was to find a sandy beach so that I can bring my eldest daughter on our next outing. The stipulations were, sandy beach and a Costa Coffee in the near vicinity for my wife. That counts out all the usual suspects that I would go to as we would need a town to fulfill that last point. I decided that we should look at Mudeford, it was on the map, near Christchurch and it could fulfill all the criteria......it didn't. The beach was part sand, mostly pebbles and packed with tourists. Without wishing to offend anyone, it was like an Essex outing, full of families, all squawking, shouting and screaming, barging and shoving, many obese and others Posh spice skinny. The beach wasn't what I expected and the funfair that was setup to fleece the tourists on the beach front, was something out of the 1970's.
That was the last straw, it was time for home. We arrived home at around 8pm and I was absolutely shattered but in the best kind of way. I had a great day, enjoyed all of it and whilst I may not want to do that run again this year, I will certainly do it next year.

My recommendations are Corfe Castle, Durdle Door for a quick visit if you're passing and Blue Pool for some peace.