Woolsbarrow Hill Fort- 23rd August 2018

Enough of boring, long walks! I was going to do an ad hoc, hardly planned at all, hardly worth it walk. Yep, I was going to pack up my boots, binocs, camera, GPS and lunch, drive for over an hour, park the car and walk for all of, oooh, two miles, for the exclusive sake of four gridsquares. At least I was going to do all that but miss out the word 'exclusive' and you'd be closer to the truth.

After my rockpooling session at Kimmeridge I decided to make it worth my while having driven that far in the first place by doing a few eastern gridsquares. Yes, I was going to venture east of my arbitrary border into seldom discovered land, as far as me and my boots are concerned, that is.

And I was going to bag a trigpoint to boot! We'd often driven down Sugar Loaf Lane and mused on the origins of its name. We'd even stopped there once to eat our fish and chips in the dark and we'd nearly been for a walk here once when we were wimpish fair weather walkers and the rain put us off. 

Today the sun was shining, the heather was in bloom, so was the gorse and the signs confirmed my estimation that this was a two mile circular walk. My destination - Woolsbarrow Hillfort.

There's not a lot to be said about it really. It is a lovely little walk. you could almost bring your granny. You're surrounded by a plethora of colours and aromas - gorse and heather being the predominant, but the russet tones of the dying bracken remind you that autumn is just around the corner.

Wareham Forest - SY8891

It is also predominantly a pine forest, so a little monotonous tree-wise, but I was just in awe of the heathland and then the Graylings which tantalised me throughout this short walk, flitting, flirting and landing at their characteristic slant in perfect camouflage with the ground beneath their wings. It was a delightful walk.

Gorse and heather in Wareham Forest - SY8892

The acrobatics of the Grayling butterfly

Wareham Forest - SY8892

The path led eventually to the top of Woolsbarrow Hill where I fought my way through some thick vegetation to the trigpoint.

Trigpoint, Woolsbarrow Hillfort - SY8992

View from Woolsbarrow Hillfort - SY8992

There was just one gridsquare left before I arrived back at the car and then a Painted Lady decided to dance for me on the Fleabane - a perfect end to this lovely day.

Wareham Forest - SY8991

Painted Lady on Fleabane - SY8991

Number of miles walked: 2.3

Number of new gridsquares: 4

Number of trigpoints: 1

Number of Grayling Butterflies: 122 (approximately!)