Thursday 10 June 2010

Going underground

The continued light rains have been sufficient in quantity to refresh and replenish the burgeoning plant life covering the valleys and bluffs around Worth Matravers.  The path down to the redundant quarry at Winspit, and the sea, is flanked by lush and verdant growth, all the colours of the rainbow are represented amongst the summer herbs, meadow flowers and narrow swathes of shrub woodland; the Elder flowers are beginning to weigh the flimsy branches down, it's looking like a bumper year. 

The quarry at Winspit appeared open and as if the floor of the former stone working caverns had been cleared of stony detritus; some activity, some use had been made of these disused workings, perhaps to  supply the stone wall restoration that's being undertaken in the area. The quarry at Seacombe, last used in the early 1940's to produce stone hardcore for the wartime airfields of the New Forest, has seen activity too; although this time it's nature doing the shifting.  A series of large cracks have appeared a couple of feet above the caverns roof line, these stretch the entirety of the cavern roof, with some substantial collapses in places; one large collapse has brought down a wall, as well as sections of roof, creating access further up into the cutting running alongside the cavern. Walking through this new and fragile access I felt genuine fear and couldn't wait to to get out under the sky again.

Along the way today we met a guy walking with is dog, nice fellow, 70 years old and still walking the coast and not short walks; he had started at Kimmeridge and was ending at Peveril Point, that's some walk; an example of what can be achieved if you keep yourself together. 

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