Dorset, a charming area of Southern England. Cities visited: Wareham, Lyme Regis, West Key, Portland, Weymouth, Poole, Sandbanks, Swanage, Corfe Castle (& village).

22 September 2007 (Saturday)

We arrived safely at Pauline and Eddie’s last night. It was great to meet them! They’re such wonderful people! And their son Ross (in high school) is a great boy. They’re such a happy, friendly and fun family. We had a late (and huge) dinner before bed. Our morning and breakfast (more like brunch) was very relaxing. Just after noon all six of us headed out in our rented Kia minivan-like vehicle for a day of touring the English coast and countryside! Today was definitely a highlight of my trip and I can’t even begin to describe the beauty of the country and seaside. We visited some gorgeous cities/towns and drove through the cutest little villages along the way! Only pictures can do it justice so have a good look at those.

We spent the day walking along the sea...

We spent our morning in Wareham, a small town (pop. about 1000) where Pauline and Eddie live. We drove to the incredibly cute (so historical!) downtown and walked down to the river where the Saturday morning Market is. We walked along the river afterwards and then visited Pauline and Eddie’s church (still downtown) which was built in the Middle Ages!! They’re so lucky to spend regular Sundays there. Anglo-Saxon churches would be enough for me to actually attend church, even though I’m not religious. :) After our church visit we drove back to the house where we picked up Ross and began our journey along Southern England’s coast!

First we drove to Lyme Regis, which was awesome!! It’s a port town (quite busy in the summer apparently, a touristy place) with a beautiful beach and view. The town is built on a hill so there are so many levels from which to see the sights. There was an awesome old wall built along the pier which we had a fun time walking along. We spent the day walking along the sea and stopped for lunch at a great restaurant beside the docks where we got to sit outside and enjoy the fresh sea air. We also had the most beautiful weather – super sunny and warm all day! We finished up by walking back up the hill through a small park full of gardens, which was gorgeous. Then it was back to the car for more sightseeing!

Regis is a popular name for English towns. My guess as to the significance of ‘Regis” is not Regis Philbin, but the Latin noun “Rex, Regis” meaning “king”. “Rex” is the nominative (subject) form of king, and “Regis” is its genitive (possessive) form meaning “king’s” of “of the king”. So that makes Lyme Regis “Lyme of the King”, whatever that means. :)

From Lyme Regis we travelled along the coast to West Key, also a port town. West Key is much smaller than Lyme Regis but with its own charm. The docks are enclosed in a circular bay area with the road (and town) built around it. You can walk along the pier and around the circle where you can buy fish & chips and ice cream at one of many locations! For me West Key had two highlights. The first was its beach area. The beach was huge (as it was in Lyme Regis) but what makes it unique is a huge and magnificent cliff. The cliff has a grassy hill side facing the town that you can climb, and the side facing the sea in-between the rock and the sea is a sandy beach) is almost straight down and a beautiful goldish colour. I took so many pictures. It was spectacular! We had a fun time walking (and even running for a moment) along the beach and playing on the edge of the ocean. It was very free and refreshing. The rocks (small, round smooth pebbles is a better explanation) we had to cross to get to the beach tickled!! They weren’t sharp or uncomfortable at all, so I spent my walk to the beach laughing uncontrollably. Once there, I splashed through the water and admired the golden rock. My second West Key highlight was afternoon tea!! An English tradition, teatime is something to look forward to in the mid or late afternoon between lunch and dinner. There are many varieties of teas, but regular tea is the most common. England’s signature teatime treat is Cream Tea, which is actually tea for one (regular or flavoured), a scone, jam and clotted cream (so thick it resembles ice cream). I love scones and I love tea so I couldn’t WAIT for my first cream tea experience!! A treat from Pauline and Eddie, we all sat down to teatime and I enjoyed a delicious Nettle (herbal) tea with a homemade scone (still warm!!) with strawberry jam and clotted cream. Words can’t describe how perfect it was. I loved it and look forward to many more. :)

After West Key, we drove through more adorable small villages (I’ve recorded their names for potential summer house spots for the day that I have money) and got to drive along the causeway (a piece of land that separates a famous lagoon from the sea) that crossed Chesil Beach, which is where the sailing competitions for the 2012 Olympics will take place! We took pictures from afar and then drove across the causeway into Portland, host of the 2012 Olympics. Portland, obviously a port town, is built on a massive hill. The streets wind up and the houses line all areas of the hill for a beautiful view of the causeway, lagoon and sea. The city is already preparing for the games by building lodgings for the athletes and facilities for the Olympic teams and visitors. It’s a huge and gorgeous area. We drove to the very top of the mountain-like hill that is Portland where we parked the car and got out to take pictures of the unforgettable view. We looked back upon the road that led us into town; the height reminded us how we’d driven along the coast.

After our short visit to Portland, we jumped back into the car and drove to Waymouth, a seaside town very popular for summer tourists. Like in Canada, the ports often have games and amusements along the beach. We drove through the town’s busy centre and along its extensive beach to the other end of town for a restaurant with a view: The Spyglass Pub. This brings me to an interesting piece of English trivia: They don’t tip in England. Well, I shouldn’t say that. Bartenders and café-like servers aren’t tipped. Unlike in North America, they pay higher wages and only good service is rewarded (none of this 15% mandatory regardless of service quality nonsense). You also wouldn’t tip in restaurants where you order your own food and the servers only bring it to the table. But you would tip in a more typical restaurant where the server takes your order and brings your food. I much prefer this system!! And a lot of really nice restaurants have this “order your own meal” system, like the Spyglass Pub. It was a great place with unique décor where we sat at a nice big round table and read our menus. Rather than a server then greet us, we read the drinks menu and sent someone up to the bar to order when ready (you pay there). Then we could take as little or as long as we wanted to read the dinner menu. Once we decided what we wanted, a couple of people would order and pay at the designated counter and the food would be served to our table (you give them your table number). That’s exactly what we did at the Spyglass Pub, and we had a delicious meal with good company. There was no rush to eat or order. England is much more relaxed and laid back than North America, which is a nice change. Dinner is a time to enjoy your company and your food, not to rush in and out. I’m finding it very easy to adjust to English culture. In fact, I feel that I belong here. :)

After our meal, we drove back to Pauline and Eddie’s by moonlight. The roads are beautiful here. There are no shoulders or ditches, so either forest, trees, bushes, or even old stone walls borders the roads. Trees often canopy overtop of the space and vines grow overtop of the stone walls and trees. It’s absolutely fantastic! Because the roads are more narrow (and without shoulders), there aren’t any streetlights like in Canada. So you rely pretty much on your headlights. But once you hit a village or town, there are streetlamps. Once we got back to the house (in Wareham) we had another drink (wine for the women and beer for the men) before going to bed.

23 September 2007 (Sunday)

Today was another day of touring the county of Dorset, Southern England and its seaside. We took our time waking up again today. I went for a run around 9:30am in the Wareham forest, to which one entrance is only a block from Pauline and Eddie’s house. It was a gorgeous day – the sun was shining but the trees provided shade and there was a light cool breeze. The forest itself was incredible! I can’t describe it; I wish I had had my camera. There were countless paths, wide and narrow, for runners, walkers and bikers to explore. I went in random directions (wherever I felt like) and ended up running through fantastic hills and into the heart of the forest (or at least it felt like the heart of it, but it was probably just the edge) which I can only describe as the forest from the Princess Bride meets the forest of the Ents in Lord of the Rings. The forest and trails were full of huge trees, some even drooping (!!), hills (which gave me some great views of the country and forest below!), wines, and heather. The heather (a purple flower) was everywhere and it was just stunning. Needless to say, my run was awesome and I didn’t want to leave the forest! But I figured that if I took longer than 75 minutes (my usual run time) people would begin to wonder where I was… So against my will I left the captivating forest and returned home where we soon had a generous and delicious brunch curtsey of our wonderful hosts.

After breakfast, we piled into the car once again and drove to another port town, Poole. A large city with lots to do, we could have spent the day in Poole. Instead, we walked along the water, saw some folk dancers, enjoyed cups of coffee/tea, and walked through part of a residential neighbourhood where the fishermen much have lived. Poole has its historical areas, but I found it to be much more of a busy and modern city than the other places we’d visited. It’s the big city for the Wareham locals to visit for shopping and activities.

From Poole we drove through Sandbanks, which we learned is the 4^th most expensive area to live in worldwide!! The heart of Sandbanks (the really posh area) is basically a thin strip of land along the sea (it forms a big bay with Poole across the water). The houses are built in the middle of this strip with the beach on BOTH sides! Residents basically get a view of the bay (and its awesome sandy beach) on one side and a view of the ocean (also super pretty and sandy) on the other. The road goes along the bay-side between the houses and the beach. Once we drove past the mansions, we parked our car on the ferry and took a 5 minute ride across the water to Swanage. I fell in love with Swanage. It’s a big enough city, but completely historical (lots of old buildings, very few modern, at least in the area we were in), along the sea, some of the town built on a hill, clean, and friendly. Basically, the perfect size (not too big). We parked by the beach and walked through a bit of the downtown. Soon, we took the diesel train to Corfe Castle and village. The Castle is actually a ruin – but it’s gorgeous – and after Oliver Cromwell bombed it the villagers built homes out of the fallen stones. The result: An awesome ruin (featuring stone bridge over a ravine, wall and all!) with the cutest village around it made from the same historical stone! It’s definitely worth visiting! It was in Corfe Castle village that England’s weather finally caught up to us. After only beautiful sunny days, it drizzled today. We didn’t have to use our umbrellas too much because the rain was so light, but by the end of the day in the Castle village, we had our umbrellas out. We escaped the rain for tea in a cute café beside the castle. After tea, we took the steam train (the last one of the day), where we got to sit in a booth like in the old (Hitchcock) movies, back into Swanage. Back in Swanage and the sun going down, we stopped for dinner at The Fisherman’s Catch right on the sandy beach (and on our way back to the car). This was our first fish & chips experience! I actually gave in and had a delicious chicken (it looked so good that I had to have it even though I’d planned on ordering fish & chips, and it was FANTASTIC), but everyone else had fish & chips…they literally got an entire fish and chip – the portions were huge! I tried some of mom’s and it was quite good. It definitely hit the spot. After our delicious meals, we drove back to Wareham, not too far from Swanage, where we enjoyed a final glass of wine and visit before bed. Pauline and Eddie both worked in the morning, and Ross had school, so we didn’t keep them up too late. :)