Showing posts with label Wimborne Minster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wimborne Minster. Show all posts

Friday 2 June 2023

Dorset Rail Trails - A Cycling Perambulation

 

I’ve taken five months off from writing, heeding the advice of (presumably) a distant relative Charles Caleb Colton, whose quote can often be found in diaries, ‘When you’ve nothing to say, say nothing.’

With all the news about artificial intelligence creating books and art it looks like the whole lot of us will be redundant soon. I guess those who are pushing the boundaries of technology have different kinds of minds to those who write, paint, make music, dance, create films, etc., being unable to imagine the satisfaction / catharsis that people get by creating something and (preferably) having it appreciated by others. I always thought that the idea was to get machines doing the tedious jobs so humans could be free to do the interesting stuff, but society seems to be heading in the opposite direction to me. It often feels like those in charge have read Orwell's '1984' and thought 'That sounds cool!'

It seemed like winter was never going to end this year, but thankfully my rucksack is down from the attic and has been in use for a few trips now. The most eventful of these was a few days cycling around Dorset. Having explored the Christchurch / Bournemouth / Poole conurbation thoroughly in the winter, I immediately set off on my bike upon alighting at Poole after a six-hour train journey along the south coast. The cycle path ran northward beside Holes Bay, an inlet from Poole Harbour which is reputedly the world’s second largest natural harbour.

Beyond Upton Country Park, I picked up the track-bed of a former railway line, now known as the Castleman Trailway, and eventually I came to the pleasant little town of Wimborne Minster after a leafy cutting and a short tunnel / long bridge under the road. I was lured by a pub which claimed to be the smallest pub in Dorset. However, the staff revealed that the claim was a little bit speculative and that, should somebody make a claim to the epithet for another alehouse, the word ‘probably’ would be added to the sign.

One particular local expressed his admiration at my notion of wild camping with a minimum of equipment (whereas closer to home, comments are often of the ‘not my idea of fun’ ilk. My response is of course that I wasn't inviting them!). Then off I set along lanes passing thatched cottages until picking up another disused railway route from Spetisbury to Blandford Forum. The old station at Spetisbury is well cared for and I stopped for a rest there, admiring the half-moon in the evening sunshine and marvelling at the fact that twelve people have actually set foot upon it. Bringing my musings back down to earth, the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway ran all the way to Bath and was even used by northern tourists on their way to Bournemouth.

The track-bed disappears as one approaches Blandford Forum, where I camped in a copse in Stour Meadows, a large area of common land. The only evidence of the line here are two arches which were an abutment on one side of the rail bridge over the River Stour. It seems that the pronunciation of ‘Stour’ rhymes with ‘shower’ here, whereas I’ve always maintained that our Kentish river of  the same name rhymes with ‘sewer’ - this is not a comment on the water quality I hasten to add.

Whilst the daytime temperatures touched twenty degrees the nights were unseasonably cold for late May and I had no less than five layers on in my sleeping bag. After a hearty breakfast in a café I was on the rail trail once more, plunging deeper northwest into the Dorset countryside. I stopped to look inside the pretty church at Stourpaine, and the hills on either side of the route were extremely picturesque beyond this, even giving my local ‘Stour Valley’ a run for its money.

At Shillingstone I passed a preserved station, complete with a railway carriage which has been utilised as a seating area for the café, and a replica signal box. I was ushered up the steps and given a demonstration of the levers for the points and signals as well as the system where the train driver is given a metal disc 'token' so that the points and signals at the next signal box cannot be released until the token is handed over and put into the machine. Hence, two trains cannot be charging towards each other on the same stretch of single track. It turns out that there are plans to create a short steam line here, so the working signals will once again serve a purpose beyond educating visitors like myself.

And so to Sturminster Newton and the end of the line. The settlement here was smaller than Blandford or Wimborne and the barman at the White Hart pub explained the difference between real ale and craft ale (craft ale can be served at lower temperatures without compromising its flavour). In spite of this I still ordered half a cider by mistake at one point. When in Dorset…

The remainder of my trip took me back to Poole the way I had come. The variation this time was that I used the signed cycle route along an undulating lane beyond Blandford Forum. Pausing by a hedge I spotted what looked like an upside down naked human form. It was pretty clear that this was a discarded item (presumably by somebody ashamed of its ownership) but I still pinched one of its toes to make sure that I hadn't stumbled across a dead body.

Upon crossing the Stour near Spetisbury, I rode the B-road towards Wareham which was both scenic and increasingly challenging as it went on. Wareham is a pleasant little town and young people were jumping into the river near the bridge that marks the beginning of the Isle of Purbeck. Like our Kentish 'isles' of Thanet, Oxney and Grain the word 'isle' is used loosely here and the imposing hills beyond mean that Purbeck can be seen from a good many miles away. Its stone has been used for building for centuries.

After eschewing the epic Sunday night queue for the chip shop in favour of a Chinese takeaway I headed northward to the woods, which appeared to have a mountain biking circuit in them with banked curves and jumps. I wasn't tempted; I just wanted to sleep. The ground didn’t get as cold as the copse near Blandford had done, which usually seems to be the case in evergreen forests, but a flying critter bit me in the night causing my lip to puff up to resemble something between Mick Jagger and the Elephant Man. This deflated as the next day progressed and hopefully the sunglasses nudged the look towards the ‘rock star’ end of the spectrum as I availed myself of three coffees after the eight-mile ride to Poole the next morning.

With a puffy eyelid to boot, I began the long train journey back to Kent, with a beer break at Eastbourne. I was pleased to see that Blue Moon beer was back on the menu at 'Spoons' and it was served, as it should be, with a slice of orange in the glass. However, three pints savoured in the lengthening sunshine streaming through the window still didn't prepare me for the onslaught of head-wind that I encountered when riding along the coast. My aim of camping one final night near the seaside town of Bexhill was soon abandoned in favour of almost completing my journey back on the next train and camping in a familiar wood around four miles from my home.

If you've enjoyed this traveller's tale, you may be interested to read my books 'Mud, Sweat and Beers' and 'Stair-Rods and Stars.' There's still time to catch these before A.I. steals my bike and my ideas to create a blockbuster written purely by algorithm to maximise sales. I guess the body would have to be dead and the lip would have had to have swollen to disfiguring proportions. Who wants the truth these days, hey?

Monday 18 September 2017

The New Forest & Bournemouth - a Cycling Perambulation



The journey from Kent to the New Forest by train is something of an epic, although remarkably cheap if you travel along the South Coast via Brighton and Southampton. I alighted at Brockenhurst, with the feeling that astronauts must get after travelling to the moon and first setting foot on the lunar landscape as I headed south along a B-road. My aim was to cycle a former railway track-bed to Ringwood, but a sign said 'Residents Only' (or words to that effect) at the point where it left the road. So I decided to ride a big square to get onto the route further west, encountering my first New Forest ponies under a bridge. I then recapped the eastern end of the track-bed and it turned out that perhaps the sign had been aimed at vehicles rather than bikes, for I passed many other cyclists oblivious to this prohibition.

Resuming a westward course, after a few miles I reached the remnants of a station where an elderly couple warned me so that I didn't ride over an adder. The old man remarked that it looked beautiful, but having never been a huge fan of snakes I politely voiced a counter-opinion! We watched it slither away into the long grass, and breathing a sigh of relief, I continued. Yet, within a few minutes of resuming my ride, I nearly rode over another one. The snake coiled upon itself in defence and I vowed to get well out of this area before thinking about camping. Later, when I crossed a lane, the way it curved up the hillside reminded me of the shape of the snake, but I found this much more attractive (sorry, nature lovers!).

At the end of the track, I turned right towards the village of Burley and took a short cut up Honey Lane (a pleasant name for a muddy track). About six ponies were coming the other way, like a family out for an afternoon stroll. After more lanes and a short resurgence of the track-bed, I headed into Ringwood. A hiker asked me for the very specific amount of £1.50. Thinking he might be homeless I took pity, but afterwards felt that I might have been conned. It's always so tricky to know what is the right thing to do in these situations.

To the south of the town, the railway route continues westward, now named the Castleman Way (or Castleman Corkscrew due to its circuitous route to take in as many towns as possible between Brockenhurst and Poole). It bridged a few rivers and was a straight, lightly forested route, at times running as two trails side by side.

I decided to stop at a pub in the village of West Moors. Relaxing with a pint, I took in the vibes of the radio station which was playing non-stop rock classics. The bar staff said they receive mixed opinions from their customers but thanked me for my complimentary feedback (guitarist's pun intended). I enjoyed a healthy salmon dinner before moving on.

The route beyond deviated from the old rail route, using various woodland tracks, eventually steering me onto the main road into Wimborne Minster. At Leigh Common, I headed into the woods in search of a camping spot. There was a trail on a wooden platform over wetlands – the longest of its kind that I've seen. I eventually made my bed beside a fence. Some young men in fields nearby seemed to be getting drunk, and when they went quiet, some noisy teenage girls started shrieking with merriment. Naturally, I kept as inconspicuous as possible until my eyelids grew heavy and the revelry subsided.

It amazed me that the footpath behind the fence was busy even before it got light. After some dozing, I packed everything away and rode into Wimborne Minster, choosing a Polish cafe for a traditional English breakfast. I had a look inside the minster before taking a course southward from the town, accidentally frequenting the ladies' - twice! The funny look I got the second time was what gave the game away.

Rejoining the track-bed, which now began a long descent towards Poole, tiredness began to encroach, so I stopped for a rest in a wooded glade near where the path bridges the mighty A35. I used my rucksack as a pillow and actually dozed, dreaming in sounds only (strange things happen when asleep in the woods!).

After the bridge there were some estate roads (these look the same in every town) and soon after I got a bit lost, finding my way through Upton Park, to a path which ran along the top of Poole Harbour. The harbour is often claimed to be the second largest natural harbour in the world after Sydney. This upper part is also a nature reserve (read 'covered with algae'). When I reached Poole 'Old Town,' I decided to explore. The Lower High Street was very quaint, but further up were all the usual stores (like those suburbs – the same in every town – except in my home town where far too many shops are displaying 'To Let' signs to befit the 'boom town' epithet often bestowed upon it). I returned to a pub in the quaint part and took in the vibes of the beer garden, after watching an elderly couple drink up rapidly and leave having been blasted with rave music from the juke box inside. I knew it was a mistake when they came in and sat right beneath the speaker.

The next part of the ride along Poole Harbour was the day's high point, with views to Brownsea Island (site of Baden-Powell's first scout camp) and the Purbeck Hills across the water and a pleasant green ever to my left on the landward side. However, disappointment followed at the end of Shore Road – I wanted to ride the sea-wall to Bournemouth but bikes aren't allowed on the esplanade in July and August. An RNLI collector ventured, 'You're probably wondering why we are here?' I replied, 'To be honest I'm wondering if I can bike along this sea-wall!' His response was informative, so I put some coins in the bucket before pounding eastwards along the leafy cliff-top roads instead, gently curving, with a suspension footbridge over one of the 'chines.'

I breezed through Bournemouth and on to Boscombe, where I saw the first signs of High Street decline on this trip. I imagine that Internet shopping is to blame for the traditional High Street's struggles along with the perpetual recession and the continued policy of lower tax for businesses locating out of town. I also saw a 'Doctor Who' style police box at the start of the pedestrian area. Maybe such a TARDIS could whizz me back to a time when our High Streets were buzzing!

The rest of the ride took me through interminable suburbs as far as some woodland near the village of Hurn. Here I made the pivotal decision to go home. The threat of rain for most of the next day was one reason, but I was also nearing the New Forest again; as the afternoon progressed I would soon need to find a camping spot and there is a ban on wild camping across the whole of the New Forest (and who would want to with all those snakes?). So another adventure drew to a close. There are plenty more to read about in my book, 'Stair Rods and Stars.' The digital editions of most my books are now free, so if you've enjoyed this narrative, why not have a look on Kindle, iBooks, etc. and go 'the full cycle?'