I’m exhausted. I’ve been walking for six hours and have had no sleep time today.
We had to get the X53 bus to Wool Station at 10.05am and when we arrived at the bus stop at the Esplanade in Weymouth there was a massive queue. We think everyone was going shopping in Poole because the bus was the Exeter to Poole one. Anyway when the bus came it was a big double decker and even though we were at the end of the queue we still managed to get a single seat right at the front of the bus which meant that there was loads of room for me to sit and watch everyone getting on and off. It cost £3.20 for Ann and the driver let me on for free. It took us about 35 mins to get to Wool Station and then we had to transfer onto the 103 bus which was a little bus that arrived at 10.45am. Again the driver let me on free and it cost Ann 90p to get to Lulworth Cove. We arrived just before 11am.
Lulworth Cove was lovely. All the houses had thatched roofs and it was ever so pretty. There were a lot of people about. We think most people were just having a little walk to Durdle Door Cove which was very pretty and about a mile from Lulworth Cove. The coastal path out of Lulworth Cove took us up a big steep hill but it was obviously part of a well walked route because there was a wide path of steps leading right to the top. Then, when we started to head down the other side, we met a group of about four young Dutch boys who told us there was an abandoned dog further down the path. They said they’d tried phoning the number on its collar but got no answer. Ann was a bit cross that they’d just left it for someone else to deal with, and so began our first adventure of the day.
The little dog was gorgeous. It was a puppy spaniel and she was absolutely exhausted. She was all wet and had loads of thorns etc sticking in her fur, her paws were red and it was obvious she’d had a really long walk and could go no further. She was just lying at the side of the path half asleep but she wagged her tail when we approached her. Ann was really annoyed because there were loads of people walking on this part of our walk and they all must have just ignored her. Ann phoned the mobile number on her collar and left a message saying puppy was exhausted and that we would take her back to Lulworth Cove. She let Ann pick her up and she snuggled right into her but as we had almost a mile to go back to Lulworth Cove, Ann asked if I’d mind if she borrowed my lead because puppy was too heavy to carry for long. I didn’t mind. I liked the puppy. So we walked back. I was off lead and puppy walked by Ann’s side on my lead. When we got into the car park Ann told me I had to walk off lead by her side as there were a lot of cars about. I managed to do that perfectly, but then when we got to the Heritage Centre she took the puppy off the lead, tied me up outside and carried puppy into the centre. I couldn’t believe I’d been left outside when I’d been such a good girl. Ann told the Heritage Centre man that she’d found puppy exhausted and didn’t know what to do with her. Secretly I think Ann wanted to keep her but we knew she must belong to someone because she had a collar & ID tag on and she was also wearing one of those collars that sends out an electric shock if they bark too much. The Heritage Centre man phoned a dog rescue centre, the dog warden and someone else but couldn’t find anyone that would help locate her owner. The dog warden wasn’t even answering the phone and if he’d come out he could have scanned her to see if she was micro chipped. Ann really wanted to take puppy with us, but she was so exhausted all she wanted to do was sleep. When Ann put her down in the Heritage Centre she immediately just went to sleep so a 14 mile walk with us wasn’t really an option. Ann told the Heritage Centre man that we were walking to Weymouth and if he could look after her, we’d come back and get her. But the Heritage Centre closed at 4pm and we knew we wouldn’t be finished our walk by then, let alone be finished and be able to drive back to Lulworth Cove by 4pm. Anyway after a lot of discussion, the Heritage Centre Man eventually found someone in the village that agreed to look after her until her owners contacted us. We left her there, but by 3.30pm we still hadn’t heard anything from her owners so phoned the Heritage Centre. Apparently the lady who was looking after her had phoned the local vet and asked him to do a search on puppy’s phone number. It turns out that puppy belonged to someone who actually lives in Lulworth Cove and she’s been returned to her owners. We’re happy about that, but very disappointed that puppy’s owners couldn’t even be bothered to return our call or the call from the Heritage Centre. It makes us wonder what kind of a life puppy has?!
Anyway by the time we’d finished faffing about with all that it was well after 12 noon when we started our walk. And obviously we had to go back up the big steep hill. The first part of our walk was ever so hard. There were three or four really strenuous areas where we had to walk down and up very steep hills. The cliffs were very high and although we had lovely views (we could see all the way to Portland/Weymouth) it was very hard going. After about the first half an hour there wasn’t many people about but it was a really lovely day, in fact Ann had to take her fleece off for some of the walk. Also, after the first 1 – 2 hours the walk was quite easy.
This walk wasn’t totally isolated – there were other people that we met on all sections of the walk but because we’d ended up leaving so late we were very conscious of the fact that we had to get to Weymouth before it got dark. Ann had some mini pork pies for our lunch but she wasn’t very hungry so we didn’t eat them. We stopped a couple of times so that we could both have a drink. There weren’t very many streams on this walk for me to drink out of and as I was doing quite a bit of running about I was getting thirsty.
After we’d been walking for a couple of hours we could hear loads of dogs barking. And then, the next thing we knew, we saw 12-14 beagles running across several fields. There was no one with them and we couldn’t see anything that they were chasing, but they were running in a pack and quite obviously seemed to know where they were going. I was desperate to go chasing with them, but Ann said ‘NO’ so I was a good collie and just stuck to the path. It was strange though – we didn’t know what they were up to.
We got to Osmington Mills at about 2.30pm and there was a very nice pub there called the ‘Smugglers’ with loads of seats outside. It seemed like a really nice place to stop for a coffee but because we were very conscious that we had to get back to Weymouth by about 4pm-ish we didn’t stop. Instead we just kept walking and walking and walking. What was quite nice with this walk was that right from leaving Lulworth Cove we could see Weymouth and Portland so could see where we were aiming for. We just didn’t know how long it would take us.
However once we got to the last hilly bit of our walk which was just before 4pm, and a built up area where we could see the Weymouth Esplanade, we stopped for a coffee in a very nice cafe called the ‘Lookout’. Ann tied me to a picnic table while she went inside to order a coffee, but I was so tired I would have lain down even if I hadn’t been tied up. In fact I didn’t feel very well
After coffee it was about another hours walk along the Esplanade, through the town and back to our B&B. I kept stopping and trying to eat grass as I was feeling really sick by then. We got back about 5.10pm and I’m totally exhausted.
I’ve been sick a couple of times since coming back but now I’m just lying asleep in the shower cubicle. I hope I’ll be well enough to walk round the Portland Island tomorrow.
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