We continued our journey along the coastal path yesterday walking from Tyneham village to Lulworth Cove. After seeing the hills that lay ahead of us at the end of the last walk, we knew we’d need plenty of stops, quite a few litres of water and to be prepared for a lot of aches the next day. These hills looked unforgiving, but just the thought of the views they would give was enough to push us forward. Then plan was to start the walk from Tyneham car park (thanks for the lift Terry) and make our way to our start point of Warbarrow Tout from there.
Length: 10.2 Miles
Elapsed Time: 5:50:02
Average Speed: 2.4 mph
Maximum Elevation: 171m
Total Ascent: 769m (Woah!)
Walkers: Gary, Ian, Claire, Mikey and Terry.
The walks starts off with about a mile of flat ground from the car park in Tyneham to Warbarrow Tout, this was probably the longest stretch of level ground we experienced on this walk. The first hill starts its ascent next to Warbarrow Bay, the toughest hill on the path so far in my opinion, even the climb next to Chapman’s Pool that almost beat me wasn’t this bad, thankfully I seem to be fitter now and made it with only a few stops. I could tell this walk was going to be special from the moment I reached the top and looked back behind me at some of the most beautiful scenery I could’ve hoped for.
This walk took us from sea level to 170m four times; each ascent was long and steep, put every muscle in my legs to the test and left me rather short of breath, each descent my feet were rubbing worse than the last, the blisters were gaining momentum and the heels were getting redder. Luckily for me I managed to walk off the cramps I began experiencing in the upper leg, unfortunately Terry wasn’t so lucky and it became a struggle for him to climb, however, despite the pain he soldiered on and made it all the way with us. I couldn’t have been happier when we all got back to the car park! 
Lulworth Cove is one of the biggest tourist attractions we’ve visited along the path so far, it’s a bit of a shame it’s so popular and personally leaves me wanting for Chapman’s Pool, a no less beautiful cove along the coast with the added bonus of having virtually no visitors. Once we were in Lulworth we had some well deserved rest and an ice cream before preparing ourselves for the reverse of the climbs we had already once endured.
Last year I climbed Snowdon with Kev and honestly, though I struggled a bit with the mountain back then, I think this walk was harder, even with my new found ability to climb hills without keeling over; hopefully this will benefit me for our climb up Scafell Pike this weekend! This walk was tough, I don’t think anyone walking with me (even Claire) would disagree, I also don’t think anybody would disagree that the views we got from this walk were among the best we’ve seen so far. I couldn’t think of anywhere I would’ve rather been than up on those hills looking back towards the path we’ve conquered so far.
Thanks for walking with me guys, I can’t wait to get back out there!
