Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door

Today we visited Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door. We parked at Lulworth Cove just as a party of primary school children arrived, so we went into the shop there first to give the school children the chance to go on their way! Lulworth Cove is part of the Jurassic Coast which is a world heritage site for special geological interest. I always remember an episode of Coast which used sponge cake layers to explain how the different layers of rock were crumpled by the shifting of the earths crust to create the effects of the rocks on this coast line. The layers of rock are from different periods in time but have been crumpled and some eroded to uncover fossils and different rocks all in the same place.

Any way in the shop at Lulworth Cove there were loads of fossils and crystals and rocks on sale. Since I was little I have always wanted an Ammonite, after seeing a huge one at the Natural History Museum. Not having the time to fossil hunt on the coast this time I took the easy way out and bought an ammonite from the shop. I think its fabulous, it'll make an excellent paper weight on my desk. I also got a real dinosaur tooth for my friend Lorraine's little boy Ben.

So after the shop we headed down to the cove, you can see Millie dashing to the sea in the picture above. The cove is a beautiful horse shoe shape with a fast flowing stream running into the sea. Millie loves swimming but only if you throw something out into the water for her to fetch. (years of breeding to retrieve fishing nets in the waters of Canada no doubt) Millie had a great time swimming after stones, they were the only things we could throw for her!

We then walked to Durdle Door which involved climbing a steep hill which in the past wouldn't have posed a problem for me but being such a couch potato now I found it really hard going. On the way to Durdle Door we passed stair hole pictured below.It didn't take long to get to Durdle Door - below is picture of Dad, Millie and me with Durdle Door in the background.
After our walk we went to the Smugglers Arms in Osmington Mills - there's a great picture of the pub here. The pub was lovely and cosy and with it being out of the tourist season not too busy. I had scampi and chips - not the usual thing I'd have but delicious. For pudding I had a "new forest gateau" which was like a deconstructed black forest gateau, layers of sponge disks, cream and sour cherries. It was lovely.

We are just have a quiet evening in tonight which is good because it's pretty windy outside but earlier there was thick fog over the Purbeck Hills so at least that should get blown away!