Coastwalk , South West Coast Path

West Bay → Abbotsbury

Distance: 8.05 miles
Ascent: 205 metres
Duration: 3 hours 33 minutes

The mist
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The mist was the defining feature of today's walk. The guidebook kept taunting us with "fine views along the length of Chesil Bank" while the best we could hope for was the occasional glimpse of the next field.

We stopped the walk at Abbotsbury, a charming - but rather overpriced - tourist village. We'd love to tell you about the newly hatched swans but since the Swanery's entrance fee seemed to offer little more than another walk down to the same body of water we'd been following all day, we can't.

Instead we can recommend the Old School tea-room, and exhibition on Abbotsbury during the Second World War that's currently being presented in the school. It's a very wordy display but well worth spending time over - each board based on painstakingly researched oral history.

(Today is also - for those who like to be accurate - the day to leave birthday greetings for Emma.)