TUESDAY 22 JULY 2015 Week 48
As we approached the last leg of the journey, we stopped
off at Lulworth. I had been here before, but it was so long ago I'd actually
forgotten until we made the visit again, and I vaguely remember bits and pieces
of that last holiday.
This was the very pretty stable courtyard at Lulworth Castle. I was hoping for a
fully furnished, functioning castle with lots of rooms on several floors to
enjoy, but alas, it was an empty shell.
Del's King of the Castle, and to look at it from the
outside it looks fantastically preserved for a five-hundred-year-old building,
but sadly, there was a fire in 1929 that spread through the entire building and
is now a large empty space inside. The conservationists have made it safe and
stopped it from crumbling to the ground, but they have no intentions of
restoring it to its former glory. I guess you could say this is now the biggest
folly on an English Country Estate. Such a shame.
A Ghost
story for you, though. As I was walking through the castle, I stopped by an old
staircase and looked up to take some pictures of an arched doorway on the first
floor, as I did, some plaster came flying through the doorway and landed at my
side!! Was it aimed at me? I've never known plaster to fall from a wall in a
sideways direction before (especially when there was definitely no one up on
the first floor because there is no floor to walk on! Creepy.
There is still a complex network of cellar rooms that are still intact today, and as I walked into one room, I could smell a musky floral aroma, whereas the
rest of the cellars just smelt damp and musty!
Enough of Ghosts, here's Durdle's door on Lulworth
Cove. I vaguely remember coming here about fourteen years ago, but I don't
recall the steep hills across the headland so arduous a walk before. I think I
nearly had a heart attack getting up this hill. In fact, when we reached the
bottom again, two ambulance drivers were standing around doing nothing. Del
jokingly told them they should fit a public defibrillator at the top of the
hill. We didn't walk down to the door; we were both too knackered.
Lulworth Cove, where I had an old Geography lesson
about Igneous, Sedimentary and Metamorphic rock formations... Ah, it brought
back memories of my first year at High School flooding back... Anyhoo, the cove
didn't always look like this and will continue to change due to the rigours of
nature, but as the coastline continues to recede, it gives up more fossils and
its Jurassic history.
And an aerial view of the very pretty, but overcrowded, village of Lulworth. I wouldn't have liked to have lived there with all us tourists wandering about all day. Also, this was on the death walk to Durdles
Door, I kept stopping to take photos, so I could get my breath back. When we
get home in two weeks, I'm so joining a gym!
Although we did beat a couple up the hill who were
probably ten years younger and a lot thinner than us - the hubby even said,
"Come on, we can't let them beat us," as we overtook them, so maybe
we're weren't that unfit after all.
We
were staying at Park Sead Sandford, a great park in a forest. One night we went to a curry house for a meal - The
best curry house ever 29029. And that's what it was called 29029! Weird name,
but fantastic food. Just thought I'd put that in there.
A
chilly, drizzly, dismal day, and we are just
leaving Southampton docks to spend a week on the Isle of Wight. Such a shame
the weather wasn't better, we couldn't even see the land we were docking into
at Cowes, it was that foggy.
This was the Royal cruise liner docked in Southampton, too; it was enormous! I can't really express just how gargantuan this beast
of a ship was, but trust me, it was BIG!
To give you some idea of its true size, the black spot
on the roof was a full-sized outdoor cinema screen, which we could see clearly
from our ferry, and if you look closely at the dock, there are three HGV lorries
with trailers lined up, and they just look like specks next to this floating
hotel.
We were so impressed, I think I've managed to convince
Del to go on a cruise with me someday, as it's been my dream since I was a kid.
Yay, Canadian Cruise next year, me thinks!
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