Mercifully a lot drier and lighterr it was off to Lyme Regis. There was the little matter of the Golden Cap, the highest bit of the south coast landing between me and a day off in Lyme Regis.
The path was hilly but the views made the climb worth it.
This was one of the only parts of the coast path I had walked before as I had climbed the Golden Cap from the Charmouth side with my mother when I was eight. The view over Charmouth bought back memories and the down hill stretch was welcome. Totally expectedly Charmouth had changed over the past 55 years. One amazing thing was the river bank which we used to walk along to the beach was now lined with trees and reeds instead of being wide and open.
One sad thing though was that the Golden Cap didn’t look as golden as I remembered it . Vegetation was growing over it. Climate change or just the sunlit imagination of childhood?
I struck lucky as I passed the coastwatch building. I met the coastwatch officer who gave me a shorter and in his opinion safer route past Black Venn an area well known for landslides. Thanks to him I save a precious few minutes on my trip which I devoted to a bar of chocolate to celebrate a day off.