The last of the year - Champernhayes to Lyme Regis - 31st December 2017

Well, this has got to be the last walk of 2017! Really, truly it has - and our legs feel it now. It's a lot of effort when every single footstep of 11 miles is through thick, squelchy, slippy mud. We enjoyed our last walk from here so much the other day that we decided to go back for more slippery fun - masochists that we are!

Starting from the same car park and joining a few other cars/dog walkers, we were pleased that the rain wasn't teaming down as before, but  we donned all our waterproofs just in case. We set off in the direction from whence we had returned two days ago, fighting our way through the thicket of vegetation and trying to ignore the shots through the forest. Conscious that we weren't exactly on the footpath and unsure of where the shots were coming from, we tripped our way through to the path at Marsh Farm and into the open space. Phew! Although not in a new gridsquare, I took a photo to celebrate.

Track near Marsh Farm, Wootton Hill - SY3596

We emerged onto the minor road and admired the farm signs here before turning off again onto a local footpath.

Champernhayes Lodge sign - SY3596

Marsh Farm sign - SY3596

We turned off by a market garden onto an unsigned path and followed our noses south onto Monkton Wyld Lane, only going slightly astray. We returned to the Monarch's Way at Stubb's Farm and retraced our steps of a couple of days ago past Bowshot Coppice and where we couldn't find the geocache up to Penn Farm where we sat on a wonderfully placed bench for our morning cup of tea and found a geocache! One of my favourites in fact due to the magnificent view here, albeit marred ever so slightly by the overcastness of the day.

View from Penn - SY3495

We went round a bit in circles here because I hadn't realised we'd actually taken a detour to find the cache. It didn't matter though as we were glad of the seat and break. We needed to cross the A35 though and descend into Lyme Regis and into my first new gridsquare of the day. It was  a bit hairy dashing across the road here, but once done we quickly forgot the traffic as we entered Hole Common from which we did not emerge for a good mile (it seemed longer!)

Hole Common - SY3495

We were almost over the border into Devon at this point. "Devon's on the right, Dorset on the left," I kept reminding Paul whenever I felt I needed to fill a gap in the conversation or to take his mind off slipping on the mud 'ice' rink. We plodded on through four gridsquares into Lyme Regis. Strangely, though, Lyme Regis didn't seem to be getting any closer.

Hole Common - SY3395

Hole Common at the Devon border - SY3394

Hole Common - SY3494

Dragon's Hill, north of Lyme Regis - SY3393

 Whenever we saw a sign, it read 'Lyme Regis 1 mile'. That mile stretched on for an eternity. As we reached the northernmost boundary of Lyme Regis and the Devon border once again, we started passing people - a family in wellies (very well spoken), a mad jogger coming up from behind who nearly bumped into us (not spoken at all), dog walkers (very happy new year cheery) and a woman and her child whose suggestion for what to do next was 'or we could just go home'. These were all encountered in varying degrees of downpour and thunder. At least we're pretty sure it was thunder; it might have been a huge lorry, an earthquake, a tsunami, a ghost or tinnitus from too much rain! At any rate we were not happy being out in the open with my binoculars attracting any electric activity, so we sheltered under a tree and donned our waterproof trousers (which we'd been donning and shedding throughout the walk so far). "Do you know why it's not safe to shelter under a lone tree in a thunder storm?" Paul asked cheerily as we struggled to find the feet in our muddy waterproofs. Without waiting for my answer he enlightened me, "It's because of the wood splintering and causing bodily harm, not the lightening itself." There, I'd learned something new on the last day of the year.

We finally dripped our way into Lyme Regis and wondered if we'd had a minor time travel experience into the summer, not because of the weather - it was still wet and miserable, but because of the crowds of people who seemed oblivious to the weather. There were even surfers in the sea willing some bigger and better waves. We had intended buying soup in a cafe but found the cafes overcrowded or too expensive so ended up buying portions of chips and sitting on a bench overlooking the Cobb and the hoards of people. This was the life! What a joy!

The Cobb, Lyme Regis - SY3491

 Feeling refreshed we set off once more, conscious that we'd not yet done half the walk in more than half the daylight. And we had a big uphill to do next. We discovered the reason for the crowds of people - there was to be a duck race and a plunge into the icy waters of Lyme Bay the next day/next year! That would be a pleasant alternative to the walk we'd planned up Lewesdon Hill. But we were committed!

We climbed uphill on the diverted south-west coast path, all our joints complaining from the prolonged strain. I remembered it from last time when I'd been glad we hadn't got to do it again and now here we were not only doing it once more, but talking of repeating this walk with the group. What was the matter with us!?  Even when we reached the golf course we weren't in a new gridsquare, but I was delighted to discover the golf course was closed which meant we could go and find the trigpoint we'd not been able to walk across to on our last visit (due to the risk of being hit on the head by a golf ball of course!)

Lyme Regis golf course trigpoint - SY3493

A rare sight - an empty golf course, SY3493

 We left the golf course and entered Fern Hill, continuing on the diverted south-west coast path down to the A3052 and then the A35 before it reaches Charmouth.

Fern Hill - SY3593

This bit turned out not to be as difficult as we'd thought as there is a pavement through the hotel grounds and on to the roundabout and then we crossed and walked along the old A35 (dipping out on a cache) and wandered up to the footpath at the cemetery.

Fern Hill Cemetery - SY3594

 By this time, we were not only exhausted, but also very conscious of the dimming light. A quick glance at my phone map revealed that my original course was still another two miles or so back to the car. Paul was dragging his feet, "According to my calculations, we've walked nine miles so the car should be just around the next corner," he teased as Hogchester Farm came into view. He knew fine the car was nowhere near us yet.

Hogchester Farm - SY3594

We entered a field with lots of goats, kids (as in goatlets) and sheep and navigated our way up hill to the road at Westover Hill. "I've made a decision," I announced. "I've checked the map and if we're vigilant, we can still get the next gridsquare but curtail our walk by a couple of miles." Paul did not argue; in fact he said nothing, but acquiesced in expression only.

When we saw the steepness of the hill we'd just joined, we were glad of our decision; we'd have been climbing up it if we'd kept to our original plan!

Westover Hill - SY3594

 We decided to just walk along the road into Wootton Fitzpaine rather than slog our way through any more muddy fields.

Westover Farm Entrance - SY3595

Sign to Wootton Fitzpaine - SY3695

At Wootton Fitzpaine we acted as locals and sat on the W.F.S.C (Wootton Fitzpaine Social Club) bench to drink the dregs of our tea and eat a final Christmas mince pie.

In the dimming light we walked on tarmac to our final turnoff at Knapp Farm where our attention was drawn to a solitary sheep which did not run like its playmates upon our approach. The reason? Its badger-faced head was caught in the fence. We felt glad to be able to rescue it by gently lifting the wire and manoeuvring its short horns underneath  to freedom.

We squelched across a ridiculously muddy field to a barn known on the map as Guppy, which I thought was a new gridsquare, but it turns out I photographed this one in August on my first walk to Wootton Fitzpaine. I'd gone out of my way to do so, I remember now as I'm typing this. Oh well! That meant that my final new gridsquare of the day and year had in fact been SY3594 because the Westover Farm one hadn't been a new one either. We'd got that one two days ago in a different part. I was seriously reducing the number of new squares today just by rechecking the map!

Guppy - SY3696

Ancient Beech hedge in Wootton Hill  - SY3596

We walked through Wootton Hill woods past an ancient Beech hedge and a bronze carpet of Beech leaves back to our car, now alone in the car park. Sodden and satisfied we threw our wet waterproofs into the car, swigged some apple juice and set off into the sunset of another day and year. Welcome 2018 when you arrive!

Number of new gridsquares: 6 (down from an anticipated 8)
Number of miles walked: 11.2
Number of sheep rescued: 1
Number of trigpoints: 1
Number of potential Lyme Regis plungers: 1,000,000