Away: Cycling to Portland Bill Thursday 5.8.10

Be still my spinning legs.

On PORTLAND BILL there is a stone tramway. It was used to bring PORTLAND STONE out of the heart of the ISTHMUS and out to the rest of the country.

Anyhoo, this tramway is astonishingly steep at the very start of the BILL. MeWally cycled straight up it. I took a more pragmatic approach and walked up, hoping I would be able to cycle around the 'island' if I took it a bit easy on this leg: or legless, as I prefer to call it.

The views from the top of the Tramway is stunning.

But, there's no doubt it's a very long way up, or down.

From here we can see The Fleet and the route we've just cycled to get here.

We zipped around paths and dirt tracks, stopping off to admire the unusual and interesting, like this marker stone.

The Tramway zig zags down the steep sides of this hill, crossing the sheer gully via the 3 bridges in this shot.

Near the top of the zig zag track, we came across this other cyclist. He's the local posty on his rounds. What a cracking job.

We settled into a succession of views, all of them dramatic.

Lovely

In the shot above, East Fleet Farm is to the left, in the distance. Can't see it though. Phew, we've come a long way already and yet we've not covered much of this place.

MeWally

Our first lighthouse of the trip looms into view.

Closely followed by this one. A REAL LIGHTHOUSE!

It's a place full of people, some simply sat and stared out to sea.

Others, US, clustered around the tea shack and GUZZLED.

HEAVEN.

There's plenty to watch as we drink our tea.

Eventually the pot refuses to give up any more tea. We take this as our queue, and wobble off on our bikes once more.

Lighthouse number 3 is really close, by bike, to the other lighthouses. It nestles amongst a village of deeply personalized sheds. I think they're really beach huts, though they're by no means typical.

The whole place is a mass of contrasts, and this is yet another landscape -

and another boat -

MeWally

and another time

followed by one of the many QUARRIES.

We spent a fair amount of time in this quarry, checking out the left over stone for intriguing details. I liked these ripples that were left behind on a sandy beach millennia ago,

and the flow marks on this rock, made over time by water trickling over the already formed rock.

Some blocks were left, as if waiting for the quarry workers to come back and prepare them for shipping. This one has squatted here for many decades enjoying the view and enduring the elements.

I didn't have much luck finding fossils, but there were some, like the shells above.

We snaffled our lunch as we checked out the quarry and then pressed on around the edge of the BILL.

Eventually we found ourselves dropping steeply into a tight, shed filled cove at OPE. The cruellest flight of steps took us up and away from the beach, I thought I was going to die as I carried my bike up and up, and up, and up ......

The view from the top was worth the effort, though I can't help thinking we should have contoured our way around that drop into CHURCH OPE COVE.

We hurtled along a fantastic, disused railway track, sea on one side, sheer rock face on the other.

MeWally

SPECTACULAR

We whizzed past a sign to turn off and onto another route. Should've turned off. We ended up at BALACLAVA BAY and a fence. The MOD didn't want us to go any further. We retraced our tracks, back up the slope and onto that other path.