Beer-Abbotsbury

Nearly packed up

I've never had a whole night in beer, sorry Beer, before, but it was very pleasant.  After a full YHA breakfast, I did a bit of a tour of Beer's one way system and discovered some new hills.  Then I climbed over to Seaton with its long esplanade leading to the mouth of the river Axe.  Strangely, Axmouth is half a mile upstream.

Seaton

Out of the Axe valley, and I was on the high ground between here and Lyme Regis for a while, before dodging inland to avoid the busy A3025 coast road, up and down through Uplyme (which strangely was down in a valley, not up), to Lyme Regis.  Somewhere I crossed into Dorset.

I'd gone just 14 miles but 500 metres of climbing.  After a walk on the Cobb, I had a late elevenses at Lyme Regis Bowls Club, reasonable value at £1 with free entertainment watching a comedic bowls match.

 

Lyme Regis; the Cobb

Lyme Regis seafront

There are several words to describe the hill out of Lyme Regis, but it's a long'un, at a constant steepish gradient.  Nest, Charmouth had a nice little town but a pleasingly un-developed seafront, with just a beach cafe plus a big car park.

The A3052 had now merged with the even busier A35, calling for extra ingenuity to avoid it.  I found a nice National Trust track across the top of the hill, and then a rather sketchy byway, lurching down into the valley at Seatown, where I enjoyed a seaside lunch at one of my Dad's favourite pubs, overlooking the cliff known as The Golden Cap.

Off road

Oops

  

View of the Golden Cap

After I left Seatown (via another nicer bridleway), there was no avoiding the A35, which was even worse than expected.   Steady traffic in both directions, no room to overtake me, and I was riding up a hill, only about 1/2 a mile but travelling at 5mph, it felt like forever.

The drivers were very patient, and I survived. Once I turned off, I was in a heavenly lane winding round the hills to the lovely village of Eype, and its minimal but beautiful beach..  After Eype, the landscape seemed to change for the flatter, and I headed into Bridport, a large town with a busy main street but redeemed by several great cycle lanes.

 

Eype

Eype beach

Bridport

Also Bridport

One of these, an old railway line, led to West Bay, rather dominated by a holiday park but with beautiful yellow cliffs, shining in the afternoon sun, a sandy beach and a nice harbour.

 

West Bay harbour

West Bay, avoiding the tacky bits

West Bay was used in training for the
wartime Dieppe Raid

I stopped for tea and considered my options.   I'd had enough hills for one day, but I fancied it might be flatter for a ride to Abbotsbury, so I carried on.

It was flatter, but not flat.  I was on the Jurassic Coast Tourist Route from Bridport to Weymouth, which ran along some undulating hills with nice views down to the coast.  Trouble was, my route kept diverting to the actual coast, at sea level, which in the main wasn't that interesting,  and involved a hill to return.  One hill in particular was up a steep rocky track, about half a mile which I would not like to repeat.   But there were some lovely villages on the tourist route.  Burton Bradstock is particularly picturesque.  Swyre was nice, and Abbotsbury is very pretty, but by then I'd had enough, and also it was 6.30.

 

Awful

 

Chesil Beach and Portland in the distance

Abbotsbury 

I phoned a nearby campsite allegedly on a farm.  Rather expensive, but they had a play park, so fair enough.  And they booked me in.  The local pub was also pricey, but it had food, and a ukelele band playing, so also fair enough.