Heathcliffe, Heathcliffe, where are you???

We left Salisbury and the cosy comfort of our B&B to scrape thick ice off the little car for the drive to Lyme Regis via the New Forest. The temperature guage read -1.5c, still the sun was trying to peek out and successfully too. The New Forest was a private hunting park for royalty of long gone days, now a National Park. Sparce in winter though as always over here there will be dog walkers out and about. Stopped for lunch in a little town called Dunsford. Wound our way through Bournemouth, Poole and Weymouth. After which we found the coast at Chesil Beach which is part of Chesil Bank a pebble storm barrier many miles in length, formed about 6,000 years ago and catching and providing shelter for a series of enclosed lakes. Stunning sight!

We also found Lulworth Cove, another sleepy village nestled in a dip in the high cliffs and with a stony beach and around the corner, Durdle Door, a breached stone wall - see the photos. The history of this area goes well past the Doomseday Book.

We wound our way down into the sleepy seaside town of Lyme Regis late in the afternoon, easily spotted The Sanctuary Book Shop and B&B, managed by convoluted maneuvering to turn around and park nearby. Our home for the night, up a windy staircase all cosy and cute.

Just because we didn't have far to travel on Sunday didn't mean that we would arrive in Princetown early. We've taken to the backroads and lanes, that is when we aren't fed or led onto a major road by accident, so our drive was slow.

Next, we got thoroughly lost in Exeter while trying to get into town to the Tourist Information office. Well the office is closed until July (?) but we were able to find the public toilets (they often charge for entry over here) and a quick look around the very modern shopping precinct enclosed in the ruins of the old town wall. FINALLY, back on track we continued toward our stop for the night. Passed another White Horse, this one had a rider. Stopped at a Waiterose supermarket to top up our esky. This chain are very "green", sell many organic and/or fair trade goods and their products look wonderfull. Many ready to eat or heat products on offer, beaut fruit and veg (but sadly, many prepackaged). Still, I was tempted to over buy.

We are now in Princetown, Dartmoor, the weather is foul today (9.21 am), as opposed to just cold, or overcast or raining. We were planning on a couple of walks today but the wind would probably blow me away though the rain has probably washed the remainder of the snow away. We thought that might have to slum it in our excellent B&B for most of the day. The moors, if you haven't been to this part of the country are like our rolling alpine hills with low vegetation, squishy grass, like wet carpet and fragile, and open to the elements. We did go out and roamed around for as long as was comfortable, see the photos. Early night tonight as we head for St. Austell tomorrow.

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