Lulworth UK

Our latest weekend trip, one of many this summer was to Dorset. I’d planned to escape the Smoke (London) by 14.30 and go fast. I had a reason for this. Anyway we got away a bit late, the M3 was congested, as was the A31 over the New Forest. Net result is we hit Ringwood at 17.00 and as the weather started to close in. Needless to say this resulted in much congestion and unpleasant riding conditions.

We made it to West Lulworth without incident and checked in to the Castle Inn. A pleasant place, advertised as dog and walker friendly, but as we discovered was also biker friendly. They insisted I moved the bike to a more secure location at the side of the pub, an improvement over the car park. They asked about the trip down and we joked about Ringwood at 5pm on a Friday. The Castle has really good range of real ales and ciders. We stuck to the ale, I found a local brew called Crop Circle particularly nice, Hilary preferred a brew called Fossil Fuel. We drank lots of beer over the weekend.

The plan was to go walking on Saturday, riding on Sunday and then to take a more leisurely ride home on Sunday. This changed as the weekend wore on. Saturday we went walking, mostly in the rain or in clouds. From time to time the clouds dropped to less than 100 feet above sea level, but mostly it was a fine drizzle, with the occasional period of heavier rain and dry interludes. Even in the rain and low cloud the scenery was fantastic.

Lulworth Cove - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Durdle Door - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The weather got worse. Sunday it was raining. The cloud was generally higher, but the rain a lot heavier. So we gave up on riding, donned the waterproofs and went walking again, initially along the coast path on the army ranges. This is a spectacular path with some great views both of the coast and the army playground. I took a few photos (maybe I should not, but…), I’ll post a photo link later when we have them uploaded. We ended up back in Lulworth early evening after spending some time dodging torrential rain at Lulworth Castle, where there also was a rather good falconry display which was mostly for the kids, but the Peregrine was fantastic.

Monday morning we took off for home. The weather initially looked not too bad. We knew there was an Atlantic storm on the way in, but we took a chance on a detour to Cerne Abbas to see the Giant.

National Trust | Places to visit | Cerne Abbas Giant

Before we got there the weather declined. The rain was torrential, but we got to see the Giant, and to ride some winding Dorset and Somerset roads, before picking up the A303 at Keysley Down. The weather remained vile for pretty much the whole trip home, road spray adding to the conditions once passed Stonehenge, the road opens out, and it becomes possible to go fast.

By the time we got home, four and a half hours after we left West Lulworth, we were very wet. It was a fun trip though.

Pictures at

Lulworth pictures by Omentide - Photobucket

Thanks for the pics - they are stunning.
One ? - Is it always raining over there?

Not always. But it rains too often.