Ridgeway

Cranborne Chase again this morning, the Ox Drove above the Ebble Valley to be precise. 11.7 miles of stunning views. Not a soul in sight either. Well, beyond a convoy of 'off roaders' (think Fast Show) rumbled past, but that was a momentary intrusion. This is a magical landscape, it's call is timeless and intoxicating. Our earliest ancestors were drawn to it, their lives and those of subsequent settlers still mark the land through 5000 years of activity and monument. Where ever your eyes fall, barrows, ancient banks, boundaries, historic through to modern buildings pock the landscape, and none appear out of place, all should be there. This is a landscape shaped almost entirely by human hand, yet it's still nature who holds dominion really, it's we who dance to her tune. Yeah, we think we've primacy, but nature's in it for the long haul, and knows she'll out live our kind. So in the meantime she's come to an accommodation with us, and our majestic landscapes are the result. Recommended walking.

The Chase

Our Walk through Cranborne Chase today, looked like this. From the top: through Stonedown Wood up on to the Ox Drove, across Woodminton Down and into the Ebble Valley, up Marlycombe Hill, through West Woodyates, With Penbury Hill on the horizon, and wispy clouds above. Eight miles of pure loveliness; we would've gone further, though even when we arrived at 08.00 it was hot and I knew it would become too hot for Geoff, and so I clipped here and there, taking some shorter or more direct routes; it was a good move too, as by mid morning it was scorching and all our water had already gone. Fabulous walking though, and again, few folk about, other than we walked through farms or hamlets.

Marlycombe Hill

The idea of a timeless British countryside can often be seen as an over used cliché, something that never really was and only exists in our collective imaginations, although walking in the hills above the Chalke Valley it's hard not to be drawn into the idea of just such a thing.  Nostalgia's  funny, described as 'a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past', in many cases for a period we never experienced first hand and only see positively through rose coloured glasses. I think as our society fractures, our systems continue to decay and we find ourselves in times of social upheaval with the threat of chaos, our desire for the stability of a perceived 'better time' becomes ever stronger.