Lyme Regis - Day 2

You want breakfast? First catch your meat.
Looking east down Chesil Beach. That wedge-shaped land in the distance is Portland - where we are heading. There is a nice wreck dive at the end of this beach; the Royal Adelaide (probably torpedoed when it was discovered that there were a load of colonial crims trying to sneak back in). The local council has this to say about it; 'This 1,500 ton iron clad clipper got into trouble in 1872 due to either fog obscuring the light from Portland Lighthouse or because the lighthouse wasn't actually lit. The Adelaide was broken up, due to a storm, on the beach with a loss of seven lives. Many were saved by the efforts of the coastguard and locals who put their own lives at risk to save others. The story doesn't end here though as it was established that the Adelaide was carrying, amongst other things, a cargo of rum, brandy and gin. Many locals looted the cargo, got extremely drunk on Chesil Beach and died of hypothermia. This wreck is largely broken up but still an interesting dive.'
The Royal Marines were letting the public abseil off Portland lighthouse for charity. If I had a bit more time, I would have had a go.
Pretty important lighthouse this on an awful part of the coast if you are a ship.
It's so craggy here, you need a crane to launch and recover the boats. Portland is where Portland stone comes from - and you're looking at it. Oh, and the people who live on Portland are seriously barmy.
Looking back along Chesil Beach from Portland itself. Weymouth is across the water on the right and HMS Osprey is down in front. I only mention the naval base because I once had occasion to ask for a helicopter from here. A couple of female divers were given a map but without instructions how to rotate it. They got lost and the Royal Navy found them for us - sitting on a rock. Later that weekend they headed back to London and ended up in Brussels.
Maiden Castle is just outside Dorchester. The ancient Britons were there, the Romans were there, and now, so are we. Originally built as a devensive enclosure, the Romans would have made short work of it. They used it as a base to develop Dorchester itself (any place name ending in -chester is of sure fire Roman origin). Unfortunately, it's not very photogenic from the ground which is why I put up this aerial photo.
See what I mean about photogenic. You've got to imaging the mounds about half as high again, the trenches a lot deeper and wooden ramparts along the high bits. A little easier to imagine is a load of English hooligans standing behind the wall throwing rocks, spears and empty (of course) beer bottles at you. You can get a similar experience today by wearing a red shirt at the White Hart Road end when Spurs are at home to Arsenal.
A dificult location to maintain, they've deployed these Kiwi-magnets to keep the grass down.
Stopped in Sherborne for lunch - self-styled as one of the prettiest towns in England - and they have a point, there are some really beautiful buildings here. Sadly, this pub isn't one of them. It certainly looks OK from the outside but things are not all they seem. This is one of those awful 'English Fayre' manufactured pubs that has somehow managed to strip out a perfectly good building and make a complete pigs breakfast of it. If there ever was a case for taking marketing out and putting them against the wall, this is it. American tourists love these places, of course, but the food was OK, if a little ordinary, and who can tell what the 'antiques' strewn about the place were supposed to tell us about the history of the building? At least maccas is what it appears to be.
That's better; Sherborne Cathedral. And very nice it is too. I haven't really done this town justice but it is worth dropping in to on any journey from London to the West Country.