After Storm Chandra came the calm. Well, just a day of calm with a 5mph onshore breeze, sunny spells and single digit temps before seasonal services resumed. The artillery was pounding at Lulworth so the west side on Kimmeridge Bay within the MOD firing range was definitely off limits, but it might be nice to pootle along the base of the Kimmeridge cliffs and back. There could be a stormy after-swell, but small waterfalls may be be running too. I even thought it might be a day to sneak round St Alban’s Head from Chapman’s to Dancing Ledge…
I’ve droned on about trying to pin down unlisted Kimmeridge tide times. The short answer, I’ve decided, is Willy Weather. Today a harmless neap tide was rising just half a metre in 8 hours to top out around 2pm. Interestingly, the High Water time moved by 20 minutes from the evening before, which suggests it’s not just some publish-and-forget-it table of predictions.
Hoping to take the scenic route, at Holme bridge the River Frome’s water meadows had spread into a vast lake, submerging the road, long before I got close to the ford, which I read later was 5 feet deep. So after a couple of other attempts, I took the long way round over the flood-shedding Purbeck Hills to Kimmeridge Bay.
On Purbeck ridge the mist clung to the flooded valley bottom.
Coming over the last hill before Kimmeridge village, I realised I’d underestimated the after-swell; the stormy winds and rains may have passed but the seas were still animated.
Overlooking Kimmeridge Bay. Lively.
Down at sea level it looked like it would be a struggle of good timing and luck to get out quick through this surf in a dumpy packraft without getting swamped. I didn’t have my drysuit and as things looked, today was a day for a decked or bailing packraft. At times the seas seemed to flatten off and you could have scooted out on a paddle board. Then the surf came rolled back in, streaking the Bay with white foam.
There seemed to be look-outs stationed round the bay. How thoughtful, I thought. Who lays that on? Then I realised they were probably contracted by the MOD to make sure sea users kept away from the west side of the bay.
I thought if I could sneak through the east edge of the bay it would be OK round the corner, so I climbed up to Clavell Tower to have a look.
If anything it was even more lively, with the Ledges kicking up the swell for hundreds of metres out. So much for a quiet cruise along the cliff base. Unless I went right out, I’d be forever glancing right to see what was incoming, and on the Ledges, waves can lift up out of the blue without warning.
We tried packraft surfing up at lovely Achnahaird one time, in far more benign conditions with waves at barely knee height. It was a laugh but packrafting today would take some commitment.
Today was a day for the surfers: get in the water and stay in it. Sadly, as I’ve noticed before, watching surfing live is not like a trailer for Big Wednesday. To paraphrase Gregory Peck: “They pay me for the waiting, the surfing I do for free“. It took me 15 minutes of watching four surfers bob around before I grabbed the shots here of a 15-second ride.
Back at Wareham, a swan was parked in the middle of the Causeway. You can see why they call it the Isle of Purbeck.
Wareham Quay was awash, with barely a foot under the road bridge to the Causeway which was why the river was backing up.
And it was only just possible to reach the station where a bloke was putting in his sea kayak. At least someone got a paddle in today!
In a line Promising selection of rivers, canals and inshore SUP paddles right across the beautiful Southwest, but just one map.
What they say Explore the best of South West England’s rivers, canals, lakes, estuaries and beaches by paddle board, canoe and kayak Paddle along meandering estuaries, wild swim and picnic on silver sands. Featuring more than 100 stunning locations across Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Wiltshire and Somerset, this trusted guide provides all the practical information you’ll need for trips out on the water by paddle board, canoe or kayak, whether you’re a beginner or a seasoned paddler. Illustrated with sparkling photography and offering a variety of routes, this is a beautiful and inspiring book for water lovers and adventurers afloat. Rrp £18.99, £8.99, 2023, 255pp
Review copy supplied by Wild Things Publishing (WTP)
• Covers over a 100 paddles from Wiltshire to Lands End • Nicely written descriptions and genuinely useful practicalities • Most photos by the talented author, not Shutterstock etc • Responsible take on PFDs which are often pictured in use • Now uses decimal degrees (D.D°) waypoints for start/end points (and the obsolete OS grid ref). In the pdf, along with website urls, D.D° waypoints are hotlinked to Google Maps • Details for public transport returning to start point, where it exists
• No route maps means added effort required to work out what, how and where • Doesn’t say where printed so presumably not UK • The ‘Getting There’ descriptions of lefts and rights and road numbers is redundant these days. A postcode or D.D° for the satnav or phone is adequate
Review Getting in on the wild swimming craze early, WTP moved on the ‘boarding a short while after Lisa Drewe brought us her original and award winning Islandeering guide in 2020. A proper, experienced kayaker turned SUP evangelist, the author knows her paddling, in particular what’s important, safety wise. Like Bradt’s Lizzie Carr, she’s also an environmental campaigner or conservationist, and it seems her SUP epiphany in the US was similar to my own while there. Suddenly there was a new and accessible way to explore the blue bits on a map.
The book is subtitled ‘canoe & kayak’ to catch the likes of me who don’t get the SUP thing, but that’s the last mention of boats in words or most pictures. Of course, what you can SUP you can easily packraft or IK, and the range of inland and inshore paddles is much more accessible to the majority of recreational paddlers than Pesda’s South West Sea Kayaking.
Up front you get a map covering all 100+ paddles, followed by a table including gradings and distances ready for you highlighter pen. The lengthy intro leads on to choosing a board and getting trained, then there’s a detailed section on trip planning for sea or rivers and what to wear pack.
Covering one location per spread, you can flick open any page, like above or below, and be presented with a mouthwatering paddling suggestion. You get nice photos, a description and solid practical info in the yellow box, which occasionally includes public transport links for your rolled-up inflatable which might not be an iSUP.
The Pesda South West sea kayaking book knows what counts and provides sometimes near full-page maps of each suggested route. This book has pretty pictures of aquamarine bays. The lack of route maps in a route guide is baffling and relegates it into the ‘lifestyle’ category not everyone rates. How else can you effectively and concisely express this information? It’s not a space issue; any one of the generic shots could be have dropped or resized. I’d have happily paid another £1 for route maps because read any paddle description and you soon start thinking, ‘hmm, sounds good but what does it look like on the ground?’. A map depicts this information at a glance. The author’s Islandeering book (not a paddling book) had great maps and other Wild Guides, including their well-known wild swimming books at least have regional maps to supplement the main map up front. I’m told it’s a combination of space, aesthetics and cost.
Take Route 91 for example: the ~5-km Salisbury Loop. Sounds great, easy access and a lovely picture of ‘boarding past the willows below the cathedral spire and no license required, we’re told. Now try to make sense of the dense network of rivers and canals surrounding the city (left) from the text. ‘Nadder Island’ is mentioned to avoid a weir, but it’s not even on the OS map (it’s the crescent below Churchfields). You want to hope you don’t take a wrong turn and get sucked into the municipal sewage compactor sluice. The two paddles covering Christchurch (which I bikerafted recently) are another example, and it’s the same with so many other paddles in this guide: they’d be so much easier to visualise and so get inspired by with one less photo and a basic map to cross referenced to a more detailed OS map or whatever’s on your phone. Failing that, link to an online map like here. Lisa Drewe is an ‘OS Champion‘, after all! The book ends with detailed sections or water safety and how to paddle responsibly – the sort of solid, concise but practical information which was missing from Bradt’s France book. With maps South West England Paddle Boarding would be a perfect, self-contained paddling guide to this magical region. As it is, it’ll still give you loads of ideas, even if you need to work for them.
My Dohon two-speed folding bike is still a bit of a bikerafting novelty, so on a sunny, calm and chilly day soon after New Year, I went out for a spin in Poole Harbour.
I pedalled up to Arne, then set off north across Crighton’s Heath, occasionally crunching through frozen puddles.
At the top of the heath the narrow Wareham Channel came into view beyond the tawny, mid-winter scrub.
For stability, the bag sat crossways over the clip-on rack works best, but the small wheeled bike struggles across cattle grids and gets wobbly manoeuvring at low speeds.
The tide was a lowish neap coming in, but at this point on the Harbour shore, the HW/LW band is narrow which means less chance of mudflats, whatever the tide. I’ve been caught out here before.
It wasn’t that cold – or I was over-dressed in a fleece onesie and drysuit. But it was cold enough the snap the plastic toggle off the drysuit’s TiZip.
The bike drops easily into the bow. No need to lash down. I set off west. Today was one of those rare days where the water was warmer than the ambient air. Result? After inflating fully with cold air, no need to temper (top up) the boat as the warmer water firms it up for you.
The boat may be firm but I got no glide – it’s a struggle of move along. Is it the added 11kg, unfitness or the incoming tide through the narrow Channel having a bigger effect than I thought? I decide it’s mostly the latter.
As I turn the corner at Gold Point I’m paddling southeast into the low sun which, along with the tide, is really quite annoying. Should have brought the peaked cap. On top of that, I didn’t get myself properly comfy in the boat, as I managed on the Christchurch bikeraft last summer, the first time I tried folded bikerafting. Don’t know why; the seat was in the same place, so was the bike, but not being fully relaxed in the boat wears you out prematurely. Once past the hook of Patchins Point and out of the tide, I slide off the seat, put my feet up and drift off. I take a periodic peak and now it’s the northeasterly breeze pushing me out towards Brownsea Island, not the tide.
I turn into towards Shipstal Point where a bridleway leads back to Arne. It was a short paddle but as always, it’s nice to get on the water on a sunny winter’s day.
I try and pack up without getting sand all over the boat and bike, but it’s a losing battle. I lash down the boat and pedal home.
I’m reminded what a mistake it was to use an iPhone without a stand or at all. Unlike my Olympus, ‘wet camera’ it’s tricky to use while pedalling, and trying to use the self-timer or vids focusses on a blade of grass in front of the lens, not the passing bike. Result: extra boring pics of nothing much at all.
Later that afternoon I finally got to grips with a Hoverair X1 drone (left) a mate sold me cheap. It’s basic and sounds like a kicked hornet’s nest, but works without a phone or controller, weighs just 125g and fits in your pocket. Reviews are pretty positive for what it is. This morning’s biking and rafting would have been a perfect chance to try it out and get some better PoVs. Next time may be a while away. The weather forecast shows wind and rain right off the edge of the screen.
The other week I bought myself a Dahon folding bike, a long-established American brand with a French sounding name that’s probably made in China and in the UK is much less pricey than better known Bromptons. Folders seem to be going cheap right now as older folk move to e-bikes. I still have a couple of pedalling years left in me, I hope. At least 8 years old, my Dahon Mu has an unusual (and long discontinued) SRAM Automatix 2-speed hub, V-brakes and once folded up, weighs just 11kg (my MTB is 15kg). I could’ve waited for a 7- or 8-speed hub, but thought I’d give the Automatix a try plus I don’t mind having one less cable and mechanism to operate. It shifts up automatically at a round 10kph; a bit too soon some say, but there’s an easy mechanical hack around that.
The Dahon reminds me of my Ferrari-red Raleigh Moulton I had in the late 60s, possibly my first two-wheeler. Along with being a groovy Sixties design, I think my mum thought small wheels = ‘sensible’, like a shopping bike. ‘Sensi-Schmensi? Hold my Tizer!’ My innovative ‘full suspension’ Moulton folded too, only not in a good way. Too much bombing around on Mitcham Common doing Evel Kinevel jumps one weekend saw the seat tube and stays fold backwards after one heavy landing. A decade and a half later California brought us the Apple Mac and mountain bikes and we never looked back.
Midsummer 2012, Joe Sheffer and Al Humphreys bikerafted to the top of Shetland using folding bikes. That’s my very first green Alpacka Joe’s paddling, a Denali Llama, just before Alpacka introduced the much copied extended stern.
Years ago I tried bikerafting in northwest Scotland with my MTB. Up there it didn’t really work, the few roads were empty enough, but what paths and tracks there were were tricky on a bike with a boat strapped to it. I wrote in 2012…
… add a bike and any off-roading becomes marginal up here [FNWS]. Most of the time you’ll be pushing or carrying, especially with an overnight load. No MTB is really rideable on the footpaths up here, although unlike England and Wales, since 2003 Open Access allows cycling on all footpaths (there are no bridleways). Cross country and off the footpaths, at times you can barely walk, let alone ride a bike
This time round I have a bigger packraft and a smaller bike. I pedalled down to the station and got a train to Pokesdown, a 10-minute cycle from Iford bridge (below) near the tidal limit of the River Stour. On the water I moved the seat back and dropped the folded bike at the front. Unlike a regular bike, the folded Dahon sits part in the boat so there’s no real need to strap it down on the long TXL. I put the bag under my knees and set off about 1pm on a rising neap tide (right) but set to stay level in the harbour for the next few hours. Winds were 6-8mph from the southwest.
Iford bridge at the tidal limit of the River Stour.
From Iford bridge, or Tuckton just downriver is a popular paddle boarding spot and a couple of women were putting in with me. You can see why. You soon leave any impression of urbanity and drift along between the lush trees with little other traffic.
Add the blue sky and all in all, these were as ideal packrafting conditions as you’ll get. The TXL feels a bit heavy with the 12kg bike, or I’m out of paddle practice.
I pass a chap doing up an solo ocean rowing boat. It wasn’t this one which washed up nearby recently. Even with favourable currents and winds, it amazes me a single person can row a ton of boat across an ocean. But they can and they do.
I just read about Michael Walther, who adapted a similar boat was planning to ‘SUP the Atlantic’. He set off from Spain and in two weeks covered 1150km to the Canaries averaging 3.9kph. Explanations seem vague (boat damaged close to the port) but the trip ended there.
Soon rows of mega boats crop up with the the priory behind. Christchurch is like a millionaires’ Wareham.
Past Christchurch the land opens out. I sense the sea ahead.
A lot of boat for a little space. But a lot more stable than a little Dahon Mu with a packraft on the back.
I stray too far north into the protected shallows with just six inches of water. The marked boating channel follows the harbour’s southern edge.
From Hengistbury hill looking north. Note the tourists train for the weary of limb.
The harbour’s narrow outlet at Mudeford Quay.
Mudeford Quay from the hill.
As I passed through the channel I was hoping to be temped ashore by the aroma of sizzling seafood.
No discernible tidal flow in the channel today. Out into Christchurch Bay it’s only 13km to the Isle of Wight
Wanting to string things out, I paddled south into the wind and tide towards Hengistbury Head. It felt a bit more fun to be pressed against the elements (knowing there’s only 10 minutes of it).
I take out at the last beach before the Head.
That was an easy and very enjoyable paddle. Only 8km over 90 minutes.
‘That’s a good set up you got there’ said a woman. ‘Yes it is’, I replied. The complete solution to amphibious mobility for the recreational enthusiast (I did not add).
I weave along trail across the beach
Harbour map. A fun place to explore with bike or boat or both.
It’s about 8km back to Pokesdown station, half of it on tracks.
Christchurch Priory and the water meadows, as not painted by Constable.
Only a tenner for 2 slices and a big cappucho. I suppose I needed the energy but that cherry slice had enough sugar in it to preserve a herd of dugong.
Looking at the OS map left, you might think it’s like packrafting through London, but nothing could be further from the truth. A tranquil, tree-lined river leads to a glittering inland marina and medieval church and a swan-speckled natural harbour beyond. Once out in the Bay, with the usual southwesterly you could carry on up the coast to Highcliffe, a couple of train stops up from Christchurch. Or with a higher tide, poke around the harbour. And just after the Priory, the Avon river comes in from the north. Someone suggested it’s possible to do a 2km tidal loop off the Stour and back. One for next time. Ironed out for some blundering around on the way back, that was about 18km from Pokestown station, with 8km of very enjoyable paddling. Without the bike it would have been a long walk back, though there is a summertime ferry from Mudeford Quay back up river. So this particular outing was well suited to bike rafting. With the wobbly payload, the comparative lack of stability, just two gears and the feeling I might snap something if I rode it like my MTB, the Dahon forces me to slow down. Not a bad thing. Next time on salt water, I might put it in a bag, so I don’t have to rinse and lube it back home, but I’m looking forward to more mini foldingbikerafting trips, where flatter roads and tracks allow.
To all Mohunes Of Fleet and Moonfleet In agro Dorcestrensi Living or dead
Moonfleet, 1960s edition
Recognise that epigraph? If you do you probably read John Meade Falkner’s Moonfleet (1898) as a conker-swinging nipper. Described as a ‘thrilling story of revenge and betrayal, of loyalty and great sacrifice, but … above all … friendship‘, I recall it being more of a ripping yarn with smugglers and treasure, set in mid 17th-century Dorsetshire or Dorcestrensi.
Like Enid Blyton in Swanage a few decades later, Wiltshire-born Falkner spent much of his time in a caravan park on the Dorset coast, and Moonfleet went on to be adapted into films (not least by Fritz Lang) as well as a few TV series. But to an 11-year-old none are as good as the book.
Fast forward half a century, I realise the 13-km long lagoon behind the pebblesome anomaly of Chesil Beach is known as the Fleet, as is a village along its shore, west of Weymouth. The novel includes many landmarks all the way to Purbeck and the Isle of Wight. That’s all the reason I needed to crack out the packraft and railcard. But wait – are there restrictions?
Small-scale use of canoes and kayaks for paddling to the mid Fleet for enjoyment and the experience … is discouraged… The Fleet seabed up to the mean high water mark is owned by the Ilchester Estates and part of the Reserve. The West Fleet is a closed, non-tidal area of water owned by the Estates and part of the Reserve. There are no boat slips bordering the Fleet that are open to the public.Boating in the mid Fleet is dissuaded as the water is shallow and the seabed comprises of soft, deep mud. There is also a tidal time lag … and strong winds … A military firing range is frequently in operation... It is hoped that the information below will reach potential boaters, … hopefully persuading them to reconsider their intentions.
‘Not swans again’
They missed out plague, pillaging pirates and pepper-spraying pangolins. Turns out the Fleet is a nature reserve. The top of the lagoon (West Fleet) has been a swannery since King Cnut of England, Norway and Denmark who actually died in Dorset. Harold (‘1066’) owned the manor of Fleet which was later listed in the first edition of the Domesday Book.
Kitchen Scene (1616) Adriaen van Nieulandt
At that time swans were a substantial food source, farmed at the newly founded Benedictine abbey in present-day Abbotsbury at the top of the lagoon. During the Dissolution the abbey was dismantled and rebuilt as the new owner’s mansion, as were many dwellings in Abbotsbury. By the mid-18th century, around the time of Moonfleet the new Earls of Ilchester established the Ilchester Estate which owns all you see here, including the Fleet seabed, not the Crown, as with most UK seashores.
Interestingly, the ancient Abbotsbury swannery is one of few where the Fowle Royale aren’t automatically owned by the monarch under Crown Prerogative, or Droit de Cygneur. Look at the West Fleet above and you’ll see the foreshore thick with the swan-necked fowl.
Given the questionable access for paddling, a foot recce was in order. We got off a bus at Chickerell and footpathed west towards Langton Herring, passing big, fat but not juicy sloe berries.
Langton Herring’s private slipway and the upper limit of ‘mid Fleet’. East of here prohibition becomes strong discouragement: … serious safety concerns [exist] even for the shallowest drafted craft in the mid Fleet: extensive intertidal mud-flats… some channels are a dead end … mud is too soft to walk on … impassable ‘flannel weed’. They really don’t want you to get to the water, do they. Along the shore regular green signs like above remind you there is no public access to the ‘hazardous foreshore‘. Additional signs warning of ‘quicksand’ on the shore. This was just like being on an English river!
The back side of Moonfleet Manor Hotel (formerly the Mohun’s Fleet House) would not win any awards.
Sorry love, you can’t sit there.Green signs as thick as tangleweed – and an old jetty.In East Fleet we visit the original church, part rebuilt after the 1824 storm which breeched the Chesil and funnelled a wave up the Fleet creek to demolish half the church. It’s said the real-life Mohuns are buried in the vaults below. In the book their coffins clank about on the rising tide to warn off superstitious folk. In fact it was also a stash for barrels of finest French brandy, the ‘Milk of Ararat’!Old maps show causeways crossing the lagoon. Handy for bringing the tax-dodging plunder inland without getting wet.Fleet and Moonfleet.The Mrs and I debate vigorously about paddling the Fleet. ‘They clearly don’t want you on the water’ vs ‘They are not prohibiting it outright’. One trick the C&FNR miss is suggesting that the Fleet might be a bit boring to paddle, with the shingle bank obscuring sea views and general tidal sludge. Kayaker ahead (not pictured)! They hack out across Butterstreet Cove (above) into the strong SW wind, then turn back. They probably put in at East Fleet Farm campsite and interpreted the sign above as ‘paddlecraft not prohibited’. Interesting. Round about here the maps show a mile of tidal mudflats to the southeast, just before the Narrows lead on to Portland. But the maps also indicate a permanent channel right alongside the Chesil shore. Stay on the Chesil side if in doubt.More good news: it appears Chickerell Firing Range is ‘closed until further notice’, though with the way of the world right now, mobilisation might be round the corner so it would always pay to check.Later on, an explanation for the litany of dissuasion and prohibition becomes clearer. The popular SWCP follows the Fleet’s north shore and is frequently busy, not least because it is probably one of the easiest, flattest days on the whole 600-mile walk. Those merry hikers need to be protected from inadvertent trespassing!Littlesea Holiday Park’s list of Dangers & Prohibitions including ‘no inflatables’. Rats! Seems odd though, establishing a camp on the coast but with no access to the shore whatsoever and by whatever means. ‘Oh well, mustn’t grumble.’At ‘Martleaves Bay’ near Weymouth the SWCP takes to the beach. Traumatised by fears of sinkmud, we hack inland though thick reeds and brambles, as other have done.The Fleet Bridge linking Weymouth with Portland.
What about the matter of unravelling the tides so as not to get stranded on the cloying mudflats for 12.5 hours? The nearest datum is Portland Harbour into which the Fleet empties. I’d guess Portland + half an hour lag at Langton, but locals at the Ferry Bridge would known better.
Weymouth. Not walked 14 miles in many years.
Thinking it all over I realise I’ve fallen into the packrafters’ mentality of putting in to take out somewhere else, not the usual ‘there-and-back’ which heavy hardshells usually do. Asking online, access into the Fleet seems straightforward: put in at Ferry Bridge and paddle no further than Langton (8km) then paddle back without touching the sides. You’ve can’t say you’ve not been warned, so woe betide if you come a cropper in the mud flats, strangleweed, rip tides and all the rest. Riding the tides may work, but you’re going to catch the wind one way, or more likely an all-day southwesterly crosswind, like we had. So this is one scenario where a wind prone packraft would be a bit too slow for enjoyment, given the other opportunities in the area.
For a couple of years Longshore International sold self-branded packrafts from China, as did a few other ‘side-hustlers’ at that time.
Tim (left) actually undertook mini adventures with his products and in 2018 we reviewed their EX280 tandem in Scotland (right). But Longshore and most others shut down, possibly due to supply issues during Covid, even if demand went off the charts at that time. The website expired and their YouTube vids were deleted, but a couple of Tim’s yarns remain online at Medium (an early SubStack?), including this two day hike and paddle along the Devons’ south coast. Interestingly, he advises that some of South Devon’s many estuaries are privately owned, something I found out myself the other day while recce’ing the Fleet lagoon near Portland. No all UK tidal waters are freely accessed it seems, but at least they are extensive. Most pics by Longshore.
Over two days we hiked and paddled about 40km. Whilst we were carrying a little more gear than other hikers we met along the South West Coastal Path, our packrafts enabled us to cut across rivers whilst they had to traipse inland looking for a crossing. We also had the option to vary our route away from the official path, exploring otherwise inaccessible creeks, coves and estuaries. I suspect the sea kayakers we launched with, arrived far quicker than us but travelling only at sea level they missed some stunning views from the jagged pinnacles and tors above the coastal cliffs. Read the rest.
Unsatisfied with my bank holiday paddle-by, two days later we hiked back to Chapman’s and packrafted back round to Punta P. We left right on LW spring, but either my tide timings were wrong (don’t start me on that) or Chapman’s shore doesn’t dramatically transform, like Kimmeridge beach. It was less than a mile’s paddle, but a strong SSE was blowing and once out of the Pool, it got choppy around Egmont Point, especially into the wind on the way back. It didn’t help that I had the TXL’s floor mat fitted for extra glide, but which I know doesn’t work well for a rear paddler: higher floor = less or no backrest = not relaxing.
Once at the cliff face and with the boat resting in the shade of the Freshwater rock spur, the Mrs easily found fragments of ammonites in the shingle (why always ammonites?). We edged round the spur’s tidal shelf onto Pliosaur beach where a woman looked down from above and asked ‘Ow d’you get down there?’ ‘We paddled.’ ‘Uh..?’
Despite an exceedingly dry spring and summer, a cascade was still dribbling down the cliff face through tendrils of moss, ferns and algae (below). It was the end of the South Gwyle, a short stream with a big catchment. Augmented by a couple of landscaped fish ponds up the valley at Encombe House (more below), ‘gwyle’ is an old Dorset word for a tree-lined stream.
Fallen and weathered concrete slabs below a protruding step on the cliff edge: the remains of the mysterious ‘Freshwater Steps’
With nothing more to learn about the pliosaur, I was curious about the odd limestone wall up on the clifftop, seemingly bridging the stream. Clearly visible on aerial imagery, I’d noticed it walking back the other day to Kimmeridge, but was too hot and bothered to explore. Perhaps the ruin of an old mill?
Landslide into Egmont Bight
On the east (other) side of the dark shaly spur from which the cascade falls, the protruding end of the wall is being undermined, and now hangs over the cliff edge (below). Cracking under its own weight, one day it’ll collapse and fall to the beach. We parked the packraft here, in the shade of the spur. The face was full of fossils, but bits of grit were constantly dropping from above. While here I had a look at the probable site of the landslide I’d seen on Saturday (left), but it must have looked more dramatic than it was on the beach, and these little slides must happen all the time.
Overhanging east end of the wall from above and the beach, slowly being undermined by the receding cliff (2025)
Photos by Phil Champion on Geograph from 2008. On the left note the ‘other’Ladies’ Steps’ (‘for ladies to climb easily to a path leading to the Carriage road‘) descending to the wall: the old footpath still part of the SWCP in the 1970s but now under thick brambles or thin air. The wire fence and all the pillars seen above have disappeared, bar one. It’s amazing it’s all lasted so long, given its exposure, but the east side of the spur has lost several feet in height and width in 17 years.
Freshwater Steps and the Hydraulic Ram, map 1901 (Source)
Back on the west side of the spur, ‘Freshwater Steps’ is a name I’ve seen on older maps (above) and, as expected, locally born geologist Ian West’s geological and historical page had some answers, as well as many fascinating old photos. In fact ‘Freshwater’ seems to have been a name for this locality (left) which preceded the Steps. Perhaps a place a boat could pull in to top up the water barrels? I’ve noticed another ‘Freshwater’ on the south coast of Devon.
Encombe House, 1857, photolithograph, John Pouncy (source)
As far as I can unravel, the story goes that round 1840, the Freshwater Steps were built down to the beach by John Scott, the 2nd Lord Eldon whose Encombe estate enveloped a grand Georgian mansion (above) bought in 1807 by his grandfather, former Chancellor Lord Eldon (also John Scott; d. 1838; right). History has not judged the first Lord too fondly according to usually impartial Wikipedia, as well as this writer who puts him alongside the famously loathed Castlereagh of the late Regency era. Since those days the estate has grown greatly.
The falls today at Freshwater Steps. The last hanging step visible top left
The surviving stone wall is actually the portal of a finely built, 60-metre, stone-lined culvert passing under the South West Coast Path (gallery above). Downstream, a cobbled canal once redirected the stream over the promontory’s tip (another image from 1965), though the 2004 Purbeck Revealed book (see below) seems to explain this as a natural feature, despite the stone-lined canal. Freshwater and sea storms eroded the spur and the stream receded to its current position (left) – the same geological process which, decades later, saw a pliosaur snout drop to the shore with an unheard thud.
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Google Earth historical imagery. In 2002 the coast path still took the old way close to the cliffs and through the scrub (as still shown of Google Maps today), the wall and canal appear intact with a pillar at each end of the wall and another (which has been moved but still survives in the grass) marking a gateway to the Steps whose lower have have collapsed to the beach. At least 2 metres of cliff have also slipped down from the eastern side of the spur. Another, more overgrown image from 2005; the canal wall remains intact and the waterfall tips off towards the end. Note the gully above the as-yet unfound pliosaur, it may have contributed to the erosion which eventually exposed the snout. By 2014 the SWCP had rerouted north, the western canal wall had collapsed, littering the beach below and putting the waterfall in its current position, although the upper Steps are still evident. The wall is collapsing on the east side. Current GE imagery appears to extend the east wall which suggests artificial enhancement, possibly AI?
Mid-19th century ‘carriage roads’
Why all this work diverting the gwyle through a culvert and building the Steps? Perhaps, along with the estate’s fine gardens and numerous carriage roads (one cutting right across long subsided Houns Tout cliff to Chapman’s; left), it was all about impressing visitors with picturesque ‘follies’ along with the supposed health benefits of bathing in sea water (see pump house below) which had helped put nearby Weymouth on the map. Purbeck Revealed (2004) by Ilay Cooper may have another explanation. Born in Swanage during WW2, the author describes larking about on the Encombe estate as a boy. According to his research, the second Lord was responding to water shortages on the estate with bold Victorian engineering, not engaging in late Regency frippery. The gwyle’s catchment was not so broad after all, necessitating the digging of long, stone-lined tunnels and laying pipes into adjacent valleys in search of springs. The Freshwater project may have been little more than a spin off while the builders and masons were in. Certainly Encombe sat right on top of lashing of Purbeck stone from which the house itself was originally built.
The Steps and Falls may have modestly been trying to outdo the 1831 Clavell Tower folly (right), three miles west along the SWCP on the adjacent Smedmore Estate. The Tower survived a little better than the Freshwater infrastructure, but a century on, it was a ruined, burned out shell. By 2007, in poor shape internally and fast becoming the ‘Leaning Tower of Purbeck’, a funding campaign finally succeeded in having it dismantled brick by brick and moved back from the cliff edge.
Note that especially on the east side, the cliff is much more receded than this modified map, based on the Definitive County Map, shows
Near the Steps, this doesn’t look like a ‘hydraulic ram’ as shown on maps.
On another visit here, exploring the area just north of the wall, a friend noticed a rusted iron fence and overgrown steps (left) leading down to a domed chamber. Inside a heavily corroded crank and flywheel (above) looked like the ‘Hydraulic Ram‘ noted on late-1800s maps (below) and listed on Dorset Heritage. But the position doesn’t line up with old maps and I must admit, the device we saw doesn’t resemble any vintage ram pumps found online, each with their distinctive bulbous ‘accumulator’ chamber. With the hand wheel and crank, this looked more like a means to vertically open a sluice valve. Maybe there’s more elsewhere or below the stone floor. At Encombe, old sources say the pump was used secondarily to move sea water up to the house where people could bathe in privacy, not on the beach like the hoi polloi. It may explain the small side shaft I noticed passing through the culvert probably directly under the pump house – an outlet for the sluice or the ram’s ‘waste valve’ perhaps? Assuming sea water bathing didn’t go on round the clock at Encombe, the chamber we found may have been a valve to get the hydraulic ram pumping. The pump house was also alongside a shorter trail to the SWCP, joining it just before the steps climb westwards.
A ‘hydram’ is an ingenious ‘uphill water pump’ invented by one of the Mongolfier brothers in 1796, a decade or more after their famous hot air balloon flight (left) also turned the concept of gravity upside down. The pump uses the free energy of a constant water source and the ‘water hammer’ effect (the bang when you shut off a tap quickly) feeding pipes fitted with a pair of one-way valves. Once balanced, it slowly but surely pumps water way above the inlet source with a little wastage from the first valve – see vid below. Requiring no external power and little maintenance, hydraulic rams and similar devices were common in the pre-electric 19th century, and have been rediscovered today by off-griders and remote villages in the developing world.
There’s a good account extracted from local born Bob Dorey’s (1892-1995) memoir – Odds & Ends from My Century (1992) – on the Kingston history page. Here, the old village pub was renamed the Scott’s Arms after WW2. OS maps also show ‘Eldon’s Seat’ half a mile to the northwest of the Steps, the first Eldon’s private viewpoint.
Finely built culvert, nearly 200 years old. Crawling through here was all a bit ‘Famous Five and the Mystery of the Freshwater Steps’. At the end of the tunnel I was expecting to find a lost smugglers’ hoard draped by a couple of skeletons. Maybe I’ve read too many books.
Storms raged and the soft shale crumbled, slowly taking the Steps, and parts of the wall and channel with them. The falls broke through to spill down the mossy cliff some time after 2005, and around 1978 (according to Purbeck Revealed) the Steps, long undercut, collapsed entirely, never to be trod again.
A castaway’s last desperate attempt at rescue.
Deary me, we have drifted a long way from packrafting and adventures in packboats. We set off back to Chapman’s, the TXL riding over bigger waves like a dead pliosaur. The Mrs was not at ease and next day Poole Coastguard reported being swamped with incidents. I was also surprised how sore the shoulders were next day after just 2.5 kms there and back in the wind and waves, compared to Saturday’s calm 6-kilo ride over from Kimmeridge. Seems it was more effort than it felt, like a short but rough MTB ride vs a longer road ride. Repeating that crossing today in a packraft would’ve been utterly exhausting if not an outright Bad Idea. But that’s why we wait and wait for the 10% chance of <10mph tailwinds with favourable tides.
They say everyone remembers where they were when the BBC aired ‘Attenborough and the Giant Sea Monster‘ on New Year’s Day, 2024. ICYMI, it’s still on iPlayer and having watched it, you’ll realise the profile of the famously fossil-rich Kimmeridge cliffs along Dorset’s Jurassic Coast has been raised further. Come high summer it’s impossible to find a park at the local Sainsbury’s.
Attenborough and the Giant Sea Monster – on BBC iPlayer last time I looked
The story goes that in 2022, fossil enthusiast Phil Jacobs was fossicking along a difficult-to-access beach at low tide when he discovered a huge, crocodile-like snout in the shingle (left). He contacted Steve Etches (below) at the nearby Etches Collection fossil museum in Kimmeridge and, long story short, a two-metre pliosaurskull was laboriously excavated from the friable cliff-face from which the snout had dropped. The BBC and Attenborough recorded it all as over months, the skull was painstaking restored and primed to go on display at the Collection the day after the documentary aired. Good article.
Steve Etches dwarfed by the massive pliosaur skull
I’d visited the usually deserted museum over Christmas a week earlier, finding another similarly huge pliosaur jaw and many other amazing marine fossils on display. Returning on a stormy January 2nd after the broadcast, the place was packed with curious visitors blithely ignoring the ‘No Photos’ edicts right under Steve Etches’ nose. Since then the Pliosaur has been rebranded as the ‘Sea Rex‘.
Smedmore Estate signs at Kimmeridge Bay (left) warn against doing many things, including fossil hunting, and yet the museum has a video on how to do this safely. So I wondered how permission worked in the technically ‘neutral’ or Crown-owned intertidal zone (ITZ) where the fossil-rich Kimmeridge Ledges lie, and further east where the snout was found. A member of staff explained that protected SSSI status (see map or below) extended into the ITZ (as it might do for coral reefs) and Etches, a local man with decades of fossil collecting behind him, is the only person with permission from the Smedmore Estate (who help fund his museum) to excavate fossils, presumably in the cliffs fringing their land above the ITZ.
Kimmeridge SSSI includes ITZ
Perhaps finding tiny, loose fossils while beach combing is tolerated. When I was packing up my packraft the other day at Chapman’s Pool, I flicked off a wet flake stuck to the boat and could swear it was a thumbnail-sized ammonite fossil, DoB: 150,000,000 BC. I tried to find it among the shingle, but the fast-rising tide was lapping at my feet, so it got away. Another time down at Chapman’s (below left), the geef easily found a curl of ammonite shell the size of a thumb. Ammonites embedded in the exposed grey bedrock are everywhere (above left).
Chapman’sPart excavated Dogosaurus
Like many who know the area, I was curious to know exactly where the fossil was found – or more accurately, solving the geo-locating challenge was a bit of ‘Wherewozit’ fun. Not surprisingly, the location was conspicuously absent from mainstream reports, but within the first minute of the BBC doc the excavation site is shown, and a couple of minutes later, snout finder Phil Jacobs’ shaky phone video pans past a waterfall in the background with a limestone wall bridging it (more below), and a mention of ‘east of Kimmeridge’. Ah Ha! The waterfall appears again in the BBC doc, so all in all you don’t have to work for GCHQ to pin down a possible location.
Fast forward a year and I finally got to paddle past what looked like Punta Pliosaurus on my way to Chapman’s from Kimmeridge. Beforehand, I’d wondered what would be there: disingenuous ‘Danger, Keep Away, Loose Cliff’ signs, evidence of excavation to retrieve the rest of the megafish’s body, or a huddle of day tourists from Swanage?
BBCPunta Pliosaurus?
Although a late-afternoon sun was casting a shadow across the cliff (above right), all I can say is, assuming I’d got the right place, they’ve done an superb job of disguising the excavation of the pliosaur skull and restoring the cliff’s natural appearance until they get a chance to come back and finish the job. That said, a couple of weeks later a regular walker who knew the story here thought natural processes had quickly obliterated the excavation but either way, once done, they’re gonna need a bigger display case. Meanwhile, something else above the beach had caught my eye. More about that here.
Action Stations and man the pumps. Conditions are finally benign for a paddle from Kimmeridge Bay to Chapman’s Pool – a distance of over three point six miles. It’s not exactly rowing the Pacific, but in a dumpy packraft you need to pick your moments when there are no take-outs from one end to the other, followed it’s a stiff, four-mile walk back. A big spring tide was inbound for HW about 8pm and the wind was forecast at just 8mph SSW (onshore) and dropping by late afternoon. Plus it was sunny, too. Which was nice.
I packed a paddle in my pack and rode down to Kimmeridge Bay.At Kimmeridge Bay’s massive car park field, bikes are only £1.20, but it’s a choka bank holiday weekend so I hope the lad at the pay shed was on a percentage today. I asked him about tides which have been doing my under-stimulated brain in. ‘Err, there’s a board over there’ said laddy. At last, the Kimmeridge Question was solved, I thought, admiring the first apostrophe, but sighing at the second. It turned out the board lazily repeated UKHO Mupe Bay/Lulworth Cove timings, about 5 miles west. You’d think that would be adequate for an estimate, but not necessarily.I’m still baffled by the tides on Purbeck’s eastern Jurassic Coast. The problem is getting reliable times for Kimmeridge Bay or Chapman’s Pool, the most useful put-ins hereabouts, and timings matter the longer you’re on the water. The UKHO posts times for Mupe Bay and also Lulworth Cove which is less than a mile away. The times are identical. And then there’s nothing until Swanage, about 12 miles to the east as the black-tipped tern flies and a doable day’s paddle in a long boat. Such gaps in UKHO stations are fairly normal along the UK coast, and you’d think just estimating Mupe Bay ± ~30 mins will give a time for Kimmeridge. But around here the tidosphere is all warped. Above, a few days before neap tide, it looks like Swanage rises in synch with Mupe and then ‘holds on’ to HW for hours, before dumping five hours ‘late’.And then I found this Insta post (above) from Sharon Lee in Brighton who makes tide times posters. But not for Kimmeridge because, as she observes: ‘Notice an arc of weirdness around Dorset? That’s an amphidromic point. Which basically means the tides around Dorset (particularly the Isles of Purbeck and Portland) are utterly mad.’ Amphidromic (or a tidal node) was a new one on me, but may explain the Mupe-Swanage Incongruity (MSI), as tidal philosophers have called it since Pytheas skimmed pebbles with Posidonius. You’ll find many tide times websites supposedly offering times for non-UKHO locations, but many just list the nearest UKHO location with no real-world adjustment. As unless I am over-thinking it, Mupe Bay to Swanage needs quite a bit of Amphidromic adjustment. And while I have your attention, what is the point of UKHO listing identical times for Lulworth Cove and Mupe Bay, just a mile apart? Is it because one is civilian-touristy and the other military most days of the year? So what? Yes, there are no less than four UKHO tidal locations in western Poole Harbour (+ Wareham) as closely bunched, but it’s a busy area that drains out to mud flats at low water and the timings are all different.Mysterious tidal nodes appear all over the world. They are the Black Holes of the Oceans; go there and nothing happens. Spooky. Source Then I saw in Kimmeridge’s Etches Fossil Museum shop a locally published tide tables booklet. ‘… West Dorset’ said the cover, but ‘Covers the coast from Swanage, Dorset through to Salcombe, East Devon‘ claimed the shop’s online blurb. The publisher’s website said as much (… the whole of the Dorset and South Devon coast…). Not in the copy I bought. The tables give every day of the published year, but only for Exmouth, Lyme and Portland. There’s nothing east of Portland in the booklet, unless you include a spot check on Portsmouth or Dover. No mention of Swanage, Lulworth or other local adjustments for Purbeck. You’d think I’d not be the first to notice this, I’d have saved my money for two more moto parkings were it not for chappy behind the shop counter advising: add an hour to Portland for BST, then 15-25 minutesfor Kimmeridge. It’s Portland’s sticky out Bill that puts a spanner in Purbeck’s tidal flow, he explained. The formula was not Mupe Bay ± 30 minutes, as I’d guesstimated, but Portland + 15-25. I coughed up my £2.50 as an offering for this handy tip – I’ll appreciate it and the booklet when AI implodes the internet. But hold your paddles, there’s more! Also on the Etches website I found a link to Willy Weather with a page for Kimmeridge Bay that wasn’t just a paste from Mupe Bay, but believably adjusted times. I compared KB times many months in the future using the Portland booklet formula and Willy, and found them to be within 3-13 minutes of each other. Assuming both are broadly correct, that will do me. Willy don’t list Chapman’s Pool but do have adjacent Egmont Point which seems to be KB + 2 minutes. I’d heard of Willy Weather, but it wasn’t in my tidal bookmarks. It is now.Still reading? At the jetty by the Wild Seas Centre a pair of well prepared sea anglers were setting out in their double outrigger SoTs. Talking of gear, this is a proper sea paddle so I’m in my proper Kokatat Leviathan pfd, but it feels like wearing a folded tractor inner tube full of ice cream. Leviathan – it’s in the name. At least I won’t be too gear-shamed when the RNLI fish me out by my ear and shake me dry.I head out of the Bay and turn east. Oh MG, breaking offshore waves already! But I needn’t have worried today. There were a few more later on, but nothing the TXL+ couldn’t ride out. I actually think tackling this stage with a rising tide flooding the Ledges is the way to do it (in either direction), as any waves will diminish as the ledges submerge – won’t they? It’s more down to the wind of which there was little today, but as you paddle along you still want to glance offshore once in a while in case you’ve gotten on the inside of a building wave which can pop up out anytime, any place, any where. This is why I stayed quite far out. Not normally what I like to do alone in a packraft.
The Ledges from above.
And on a windy day west of Kimmeridge. Frothier than a Costa cappuccino with sprinkle.
The waters are clear and green. At many points I could have hopped out and waded along.
In fact, I did for a bit.
It took me back to Shark Bay, 2011. Jeff and Sharon and me in my Gumotex Sunny wading north to a unearth a cache near Peron Point after battling a stiff headwind all morning. What a great paddle adventure that was. Easily doable in a packraft too, with added dolphins, dugongs, rays and yes, sharks.
I’m on the look out for ‘Iron Skeg Beach’ I found with the Igla IK a couple of years back. Above looks similar but is not it. In the Igla I turned back at ISB to Kimmeridge as paddling on to Chapman’s would’ve meant paddling back. First time out here and with a head full of Ledge Lore, I didn’t want to get caught out as tides and winds turned, and hauling the 17-kilo boat back along the coast path would have been too much. As I was about to find out.
There is the rusty triangular ‘skeg’ (also below) sticking up. This is actually called Clavell’s Hard and studying Ian West’s page for this area, I think the object (below) may have been something to do with oil shale mining right here in the 1890. There’s a semi-naked castaway looking for treasure. I hope he knows how to get back.
The strange cast iron object that looked like a ship’s skeg – from the SS Treveal, wrecked at nearby Egmont Point in 1920? It’s more likely a piece mining gear, a winch stand perhaps.
The soft, shaly grey cliffs, rich with ancient marine remnants.Four colourful kayakers close to shore, like I should be. There’s more to see there.I pass what could be Punta Pliosaurus.
I see sailboat masts ahead behind big rocks and am a bit disorientated. Chapman’s is tucked in on the left somewhere? I check the GPS and am nearly there, getting ashore 80 minutes out of KB or 4.5kph average with a bit of dawdling, and quite a lot at 6kph, according to the Garmin. People want to know this stuff!.
Along with some moored yachts and beach bathers is a trio of menacing jetskiers playing their satanic music. But this is Purbeck so it’s not blaring, and at least they weren’t tearing up the Pool like houns en tout.At Chapman’s there are ammonite fossils everywhere you step.Even getting off the beach by the waterfall is a loose scramble, especially backpacking a holdall. As I leave, I hear the jets gun off to Kimmeridge or Swanage. I presume that’s what they did as you can’t get a trailer down here. With a packraft you can go anywhere you can walk.Up the steep, overgrown gully and across the parched field for the 500-foot climb up to Houns-tout hill – all in less than a mile from the shore. My pulse hits the rev limiter. What does Houns-tout even mean?Kimmeridge 3 miles. In these shoes? No way, Jose.
Tranquil Chapman’s and St Alban’s Head from Houns-tout summit. And actually my Teva Omniums are not the problem; it’s the wobbly, 8-kilo holdall hanging from my shoulders. But on the way back I have a brilliant idea. More here.The steep decent from Le Tout gave the underworked knees what for. I could do with my packstaff. I sold the 4-part Vertex paddle which it fitted. I need to convert my Anfibio Wave 4P but it’ll require some whittling.
Then back home I dug out an old, 55/170cm telescopic monopod (£18 on amazon Basics). It’s more gear (370g) and may slip under pressure, but zero bodging required and will work for long-arm selfies.
I witness a landslide near Punta Plio. This country is falling apart! I should get down there houns tout suite and see what fossil treasures came down with the rubble. ‘Get me Professor Etches, I found the tail. That pliosaur is longer than you think!’In places the path is very narrow: barbed wire right to spike my raft, big drop left to spike everything else. The first half from Chapmans is tricky in places. Don’t be part of the next landslide.The SW Coast Path is cracking up. Must be the drought. Come the next deluge it could all come apart and slide into the sea, a few feet to the left.All around as parched as southern Spain. At one point a cheerful passing walker observes ‘Ooh, paddles. What’s in the bag?’ ‘A boat‘, I reply. ‘Oooh, luvlay juvlay!’ she saysAt last, the rotund edifice of Clavell Tower just as the battery warning light starts flashing and the legs wobble. I hobble down the steps like Steptoe with a hangover, passing pouting Instagramers capitalising on the golden hour.I’m a sweaty, achey mess but it’s been a lovely summer evening’s walk up and down 340 metres along a tiny part of the South West Coast Path. They say the total elevation gain on the entire 630-mile trail from Minehead to Poole is a staggering 115,000 feet (over 35,000 meters). That’s like climbing Everest from sea level four times. And yet hundreds manage it every year, signing off with thighs like telegraph poles. They’ll see many amazing things, like Kimmeridge Bay an hour before spring HW: not a foot of a beach to spare.The ride home via a refreshing ford cools me off.There you have it: KB to Chapman’s. A lot easier to paddle than to walk. That’s another stage of Weymouth to Poole ticked off, leaving the trickiest 8 miles for last. First, Chapman’s east around St Alban’s Head 4 miles to Dancing Ledge. Then about the same distance from there to Swanage, around Durlston Head, another tidal pinch point and with no take-outs. In a sea kayak you’d swan through in one go, slicing through whatever the tides bring. But you can’t pop it in your pack and bus home. Alone in the TXL I’d pick the neapest of neaps and lightest of winds – and still break it into two manageable stages. Summer is coming to and end. Maybe soon or maybe next year.
Inflatable Kayaks & Packrafts 
