March 31, 1999: Swanage to South Haven Point

Climbing Ballard Point

In the early dawn I could see signs of clearing skies and, by the time we went down to the glass atrium for our breakfast, the sun had come out again. We met at 8:30, the announced hour for the morning meal, but there didn’t seem to be much evidence of any staff about and we seemed to be the hotel’s only guests. Eventually we chose a table and, at a painfully slow pace, the fruit juice appeared and the milk for the cereal was finally fetched and orders were taken for cooked breakfasts. It was as if all the elegance and heart had gone out of the meal service, now that the dreaded breakfast was upon us. Can you imagine any self-respecting French cook having to come up with fried bread?

Tosh made a meal of the final settling up too (just the bar bill by this point), querying every penny before the whey-faced redhead succeeded in convincing her that she had not been diddled. It had cost us £60 each, including the evening meal. I used some extra time (while Tosh was getting some water for her canteens and poking her head into the kitchen to congratulate the chef on last night’s meal) to go outside and take a picture of the Purbeck House Hotel. When we started moving back down the High Street I also posed Margie and Harold in front of the Town Hall, another Burt import – for the facade had once been that of the Mercer’s Hall in London. It was 10:00.

We edged closer to the sea but got no further than the first set of loos. Then we walked along the Swanage Esplanade (more meeting points for lost children) while I checked out the afternoon’s bus schedule. Tosh would have continued behind the beach (necessitating some groin hopping and ending up with a stiff climb up the cliff) but I preferred to follow a road uphill into New Swanage, where we used guidebook instructions through a suburban estate and then a bungaloid one in order to emerge on top of the cliff in question.

We crossed a stream and had a bit of a rest and some water (I took off my blue sweatshirt and walked for the only time on the trip in my t-shirt – an MSU basketball one). The Lees got out the sun block and Harold put some on the back of my neck. A family with three small children plodded by and headed uphill while we were doing this. One toddler was afoot, dad was carrying a second on his shoulders and mom had a third suspended between her knees like a sack of potatoes. They started up through a magnificent display of gorse that covered the flank of Ballard Point. That curious coconut flavor, which gorse in bloom always supplies, was omnipresent. It was like walking through a Bounty Bar factory.

Old Harry and his Wife

I had a great deal of nostalgia for this stretch, for its steep rise had earned for it the very last black arrow in Hall and Mason’s quiver. Eventually it too had to come to an end as we reached the top of Ballard Point and turned left to walk along a heavily used track over Ballard Down. The scene was dominated by the thrilling exultations of the skylarks fluttering above us. I got rather far behind here, pausing to take pictures of the white cliffs, the Pinnacles, and, as we reached the Foreland, of Old Harry and his wife, sticking out of the sea like two teeth. The Lees had chosen a not very good spot to see all this and I moved us out to a narrow point where there would be a better vantage point for picture taking. Within a minute we had been joined on this cramped piece of grass by other families and shutterbugs.

After a nice rest we headed west (an irony of direction so close to the end) above the southern shore of Studland Bay, using a farm track through some woods and downland to make our approach to Studland itself. Tosh was just expressing a keen interest in finding a loo when one magically appeared as we reached tarmac.

After a brief stop here we climbed uphill to the Bankes Arms for our last pub lunch on the South West Coast Path. They had a fire going inside, which made it rather warm, so we decided to take our drinks over to one of the many tables across the street. I had a final coast path pint of lager – once the barman could get off the phone to actually serve the queuing multitude. We placed our food orders here too and then sat in the sun on a very pleasant afternoon. We had arrived in Studland at 12:40.

Waiters carrying platters of food would dart across the street to shout out numbers, wait for an arm to go up, and head across the grass for the right table. We were number eight and they had gotten to the low twenties by the time we were finished with our meal an hour later. Harold and I had plaice (rather oily) and chips and the women had ham ploughmans. Tosh said that chutney seemed to be a rather odd condiment for ham but I told her she was just eating Branston pickle. While we were eating I shared with my walk-mates some statistics that I had gathered – now that it was time to sum up some of the milestones compiled in our walking of the South West Coast Path.

Harold and I were now about to complete our 61st and final day on the path, Tosh her 53rd and Marge her 34th. Harold and I would end the walk with 591 miles each. We had stayed in seven pubs, eight guesthouses, thirty-three hotels, ten b&bs, and two motels. We had used cabs thirty times, were about to use our eighth bus, thirty-sixth train and eleventh ferry. We had been served evening meals in sixteen pubs, twenty-six hotels, two b&b’s, two motels, six guesthouses, and eight restaurants. We had stopped for afternoon tea ten times and, although on almost half of the days we had tucked into packed lunches, we had also eaten in pubs twenty-four times, in cafe’s six times, and in hotels and restaurants twice each. Finally, I had to report, that proprietors, from hoteliers to farmers’ wives, from publicans to maitre d’s, had plied us with drink no fewer than 112 times!

We left the Bankes Arms at about 2:00, but got no further than the very ancient and beautiful St. Nicholas church, where we wandered about, Marge and I taking photos and Tosh knocking the postcard display over with her knapsack. Among the many tombstones I discovered the grave of the founder of the Bankes Arms, Sergeant Lawrence. Then we passed another hotel on our exit from the town and took the road to Middle Beach. Tosh had insisted that she would have her dessert at the beach. I had no idea whether this was a possibility but after her conjuring trick with the loos I didn’t want to argue. Sure enough, there was a small cafe here and, in spite of my admonition that we weren’t sitting down again, the Lees had to buy cups of ice cream (rather than cones or lollies) so of course they did have to sit down to eat them.

There now stretched before us two miles or so of sand, with Bournemouth already in sight. Walking wasn’t too bad along the firmer sections just above the wave line, but progress was slow because of the innumerable trippers and their toddlers and dogs and because Tosh was looking for interesting specimens under foot. We had come at the wrong time of the year for interesting human specimens, although half-way there a sign did announce that we were about to enter a Naturist’s Preserve. For Naturalists – as opposed to Naturists – there was also the Studland Heath National Nature Reserve on our left and once Tosh and I climbed a dune to have a peek. The well-trained Harold, meanwhile, was well ahead with Margie, picking up litter.

We eventually rounded a point and at last had views of the ferry that would take us to Bournemouth. A furious rounders match had to be circumnavigated as we pressed on toward the highway. Tosh asked me if I weren’t feeling slightly downcast now that the end was in sight and I agreed. It all was over at South Haven Point at about 3:30. The South West Coast Path is without doubt England’s longest route, over twice as long as the Pennine Way (and I had spent almost three times the number of days on it as on the PW) and I knew there would never be a sequel. We took some final shots with my camera when we reached the highway and, without waiting to climb aboard a bus, we ran for the just departing ferry. A nice woman agreed to take a picture of the four of us. She and her husband had done the path so she knew what an achievement it was that we were celebrating now. There was no charge for passengers coming from this direction.

Our group aboard the ferry – the South West Coast Path conquered.

On the Bournemouth side Tosh insisted on a celebratory drink in the posh confines of the Haven Hotel – which had some really elegant loos. I just had a Diet Coke; Marge had a pastry. As we were leaving the waitress broke a glass clearing our table and cut a finger. Outside we had to cross the street and go around the corner to find a bus queue. A bus was about to leave and – though it wasn’t the Bournemouth bus I had intended to take – I asked the driver if he came anywhere near a BR station. He said he did, so we climbed aboard, paid £1.45 each and had a ten-minute ride through Sandbanks. He let us off at an urban corner and pointed the way uphill where, after a few blocks, we found the Parkstone station.

There was only a five minute wait for the 4:45 train and we were soon aboard a filthy carriage of the South West Rail fleet – with missing headrests, jammed-open windows, toilets that didn’t lock, and a failed lighting system. We all slept a bit and I returned to my New Yorker clippings. The train made many stops and we didn’t reach London until about 7:10. The others accompanied me as far as Piccadilly Circus on the underground and I continued alone to Maida Vale. I had walked the South West Coast Path.

Footpath Index:

Ireland: The Dingle Way | The Wicklow Way

Scotland: The Great Glen Way | The Rob Roy Way | The Speyside Way | The West Highland Way

Wales: Glyndwr’s Way | Offa’s Dyke Path

Channel Islands: The Guernsey Coastal Walk | The Jersey Coastal Walk

A Walker's Journal

by Anthony Linick

The South West Coast Path – Day 61

March 31, 1999: Swanage to South Haven Point