Mileaters V&V Report – October 17th
It’s wonderfully illogical, but many of us still do it. Faced with a bad weather forecast, we scroll through different weather apps on our smartphones until we find a more encouraging forecast. The variety of different daily predictions can at times be puzzling.
But on October 16th every app was extraordinarily unanimous. Rainfall of biblical proportions was on its way, and in due course the deluge arrived. Very wisely, we postponed the mid-October Mileaters walk for 24 hours, and then enjoyed what could have been an entirely different season. We set off from Burton Bradstock, enjoying a blue sky and warm sunshine. Most of us shed our sweaters, whilst wishing we had brought sunglasses, though inevitably we still had to plough through sections of deep and sticky mud.
Making our way inland along the River Bride, we spied another walking group up ahead. Clearly the route had been double booked. Catching up with them – a group of about thirteen women and one solitary male who wistfully told us that this was a gender ratio he had dreamt of in his younger days – they told us they were the West Dorset Ramblers, based in Bridport, and mercifully were ultimately following a different route to us.
Our route took us past Bredy Farm, then up a steady incline towards our coffee stop overlooking the beautiful Dorset coast. Heading back south towards the beach, a flock of hang-gliders soared in the sky just above our heads. Along Chesil Beach, through the caravan park, past Hive Beach, and back down to our cars and a splendid lunch at the Three Horseshoes. What a difference a day made.
David Haslam
