Southwest England part III

Posted on Monday, December 5th, 2011 at 11:22 pm. There is 1 comment so far.

Part 3: Odds and ends in the last week

In the last section we had just left Cornwall, but that doesn’t mean our coastal journey was finished! We continued along the coastline through southern Devon and into Dorset, which I think of as more or less equivalent to New Hampshire. The main similarity is entirely in my head, in that with both New Hampshire and Dorset I have an inexplicable obsession. Certain parts of Dorset just struck me as the best parts of England, even before I’d been to them.

One fun experience we had was to go out mackerel fishing in a little fisherman boat. We were really hoping to catch a fish or two to cook up on the beach for dinner. Our captain, Harry, was a crusty old fisherman who was probably actually a good bit older than he looked. The waves were rocking the boat enough that we could only drive into or away from the waves, not side to side, so we went directly out and back along the single transect. Harry baited the hook on the end of a line, then handed the dowel it was attached to to me. In less than a minute I felt a bit of a tug on the line. It must just be drag from the water or the boat. I felt it again. Finally I decided to pull in the line… and sure enough there was a mackerel! Back in, wait a minute, another tug. Can’t be true. Honestly it was so easy to catch the little guys it was almost boring by the end of an hour, there was so little sport to it. We got a good many in the bottom of the bucket, but no worries because those we didn’t eat Harry would sell. Back on the beach we bought bread and butter from a restaurant, cooked the fist on a portable BBQ, and had ourselves a fresh caught feast.

On our way northwards towards Salisbury we stopped at the River Cottage Canteen for a celebrity sponsored breakfast, at the Jurassic Coastline to see an unfathomable number of fist-sized rocks making a mile long beach, and at the Badger Brewery to taste some beer, including one made from stinging nettle.

Last stop before returning to Salisbury was at the Stourhead Garden Estate. This “garden” was designed and created by a wealthy 18th century family, and is absolutely beautifully landscaped, along with a lovely lake and pretty architecture. As an American, I can’t really comprehend a single family having land, means, and time to put into such an elaborate property used to personally impress their friends. Probably the closest analogy I can think of is a Frank Lloyd Wright house, except this is a concentration on the landscape with buildings added for effect, instead of the other way around. We were lucky to stumble across a tour just as we were entering the gardens, so we learned a lot about the different species of plants used, the families history, and the gardens. Most salient, the garden was set up to impress the visitor with three things: surprise, concealment, and variety. I guess those are pretty good things to inject into all aspects of one’s life.

The last great thing we did this trip was to take an overnight hiking trip the 30 miles from Salisbury to Winchester. The first day we got a good start but set our sites a bit too high. We wanted to reach a particular place to camp, and dusk came on as we were still hiking on a thin path in the woods. It was a bit creepy, hiking along in the gathering dark through gnarled forests. Finally after what seemed eternity of hiking, we reached the grassy flat patch we’d been aiming for and set up camp. Just just a grassy patch, in the morning I saw the pyrimid monument placed there by a devoted horse owner to commemorate his beloved “chalk pit” who had jumped into a chalk pit and lived to race another day. Or something like that. Quite a lovely place. From there it was a full morning’s hike through the rolling hills to Winchester, where we enjoyed the sun outside the cathedral, a wander up and down the shopping district, and, of course, a tub of locally made ice cream!