Portland

It turns out that the Isle of Portland is a weird place: I'm sure made weirder today by the sea mist which periodically swept over the isle, obscuring the sun, adding a chill and adding an another-worldyness to an already alien landscape. Don't get me wrong, I'm not maligning the place, not at all. Just saying it's weird. I'd been looking at Portland for a walk for some time now, expecting more of Purbeck, and in some ways that's what I found, though in others it felt so so different. It feels like nature here has been deeply wounded, she's still reeling from mans onslaught, though slowly starting to come round. Although nature slowly creeps back over the works of man, still most, if not all, of todays walk was in a landscape hugely altered by man. You notice that nearly all the flora is different here, minimal, colonizers, it's all primary growth, so worked is the land that there's not been the opportunity for more developed plant communities to establish; as for the most part the land has literally been turned inside out. In this quarried landscape, with its racing mists, I am put in mind of a 70's Dr Who set, or Blakes 7. I don't mind that, I quite enjoy remembering those shows.

Although the naturalist in me is somewhat disappointed, the archaeologist in me is thrilled by a landscape where your eye can wander endlessly from one artifact/monument to another; Portland really is almost entirely a post industrial, post military landscape, jam packed with archaeology.  Strange edifices appear out of the mist, testament to some past occupation or activity; chimneys, walls, buildings, all slowly being absorbed as nature takes back what was hers.  One structure in particular catches my eye and my imagination, a giant dressed stone structure, beautifully crafted, somewhat like a massive piece of Toblerone. Further investigation showed it to be the beautifully built butt, completed in 1920 of a rifle range originally initiated during the Victorian period. Further investigation is definitely required of this strange landscape; that really was the point of todays mission... recon, and I saw plenty of places I'd like to further investigate. With luck my next mission will be in better weather.