Barton

 

We walked the coast to the edge of Milford-on-Sea and back this morning, about 11 miles. It was another grey drab walking day, we even had rain on our backs for a good chunk of the outward leg; that said, it brightened for our return. Nice walking whatever. I don't mind walking alone (other human wise, I mean), though not all the time. It must be nearly 18 months since I last walked with friends... and, that's a long time. Of course circumstances dictate, so no point moaning. I miss the walking talks though, where our long form conversations would range wildly; all those conversations 'we' never had I've still had to myself... I really do go on. Such turbulent times too, with so many topics and events to talk about, a period of huge socio-political, cultural, economic and environmental crises...and I've got opinions on most of them. Time with myself has me thinking my friends must be enjoying a welcome break from me.

A dendronaut's dream

 

Dendronaut, what a great word. When it popped into my head whilst amongst the stands I thought I'd made it up, although a quick look on the internet showed of course I hadn't. Still. Although searching for a definitive definition of 'dendronaut', I discovered there isn't one, no dictionary entry or ought. I suppose simply put it means tree (dendro) traveller (naut), that works well enough for me really. I think it's the perfect word for those who can't keep to the footpath, being drawn off deep into the green to travel the less trodden woodland paths seeking exploration, immersion and connection. Walking was a dendronaut's dream today.

Becton Bunny

Just beyond Barton on Sea, on the New Forest coast is Becton Bunny (bunny being the local name for a chine), a narrow valley carrying a small stream of the same name towards the sea.  The bit that people really know as the bunny though is the 400m before the sea, where as steep sided ravine it opens through the sandy cliffs. This section runs obliquely to the cliff creating a rather thin promontory, and the sandy/gravelly nature of the geology here makes that promontory susceptible to weathering. And, man, has it weathered in recent years. Coastal erosion has really taken it's toll, and once that promontory has gone I don't think the bunny will be a feature, or a feature of any substance, here for many more decades (the average rate at which the cliff retreats along this section of coastline is 1m per year); it'll become merely a scoop in the cliff line (like the nearby Taddiford Gap) and hollow in the coastline. Maybe then the stream will reach the beach as a waterfall, though maybe that'd cut a new ravine over time...time will tell. The stream itself isn't that long, maybe a mile and a half or so, originating just below New Milton. It's a nice spot.

Holding the line

Remnants of a time when we needed to protect ourselves from a threatened invasion from an increasingly agitated and aggressive Isle of Wight still litter the intertidal of East Dorset and West Hampshire. Thankfully a treaty was signed with the mainland promising to leave the islanders in peace, and invasion was averted. That was nearly 40 years ago now, and still nothing has been heard or seen of the illusive islanders. The mind can only boggle.

Oak's off

When the Oak leaves turn, you know autumns full on.

Windy out

An old familiar returned to today. For the first time in weeks, it was windy. Living near the coast wind is usually an ever present feature any time of the year, this summer though, it's been noticeable by its absence. This is far as I got along the foreshore under the Barton slides, the tide was up and the waters licked at the base of the slowly eroding the Eocene horizons. I sometimes feel I neglect the coast, I live so nearby, though go through long periods of not visiting. I think it's just that we're spoilt for walking opportunities around these parts. That, and you can sometimes overlook what's right under your nose. And, for part of the year the foreshore is crowded with people seeking communion with the elements. Still, I really should try and get down here more frequently.

Hurst shrine

It was looking like a lovely evening, so I decided on a coastal walk and chose Hurst Spit, a mile and a half walk along a pebble spit protruding into the Solent, not the easiest walking, but that's easily made up for my the views and the air. The spit curves gracefully round on itself, so that if you walk right to the furthest point, way past the castle, you look over sheltered salt marsh towards the route you'd taken out. It's a spot which depending on the weather can solicit an array of differing emotions, when stormy it's decidedly isolated and frightening, when misty it's weird and haunting, and when it's sunny or calm it's tranquil. The spit's ever changing, you can see that by the piers that are now inland or who's remnants lay inaccessible off shore. I was shocked to find the water lapping at the walls on the Solent facing side of Hurst's Victorian fortress, I'd not seen that before (that's not to say it doesn't happen, just it was new to me). Tucked away in one of the bricked up firing embrasures on the Solent side, a shrine of a type has developed. I don't think it's a shrine to anything or anyone in particular, as there's all sorts of themes, various dates, styles and purposes. I took a while to explore the deposits, and wondered how and why. Then turning the corner I wandered back under a peach/salmon pink coloured sky. Worth the pebbly walk, pebbles of course being just the worst.

Skin

Freed from winters constraints the sun shone brightly, warming the air and raising your spirits. The weather wizards predict that these clear skies will be short lived, with a grey blanket once again being drawn up over us by the weekend. Still, that's not today, and anyway, that's spring for you, April showers and all that. Today’s walking venue, Hurst Spit, a long curving shingle spit extending into the western mouth of the Solent, and crowned with a multi period fortress with its origins in Tudor fears.  The spit is high and although battered by the sea at times to the point of near breach, it affords protection to the salt marsh and tiny harbour at  Keyhaven beyond. We walked the length of the spit and round to its furthest point, way beyond the castle. The one thing a beach is always guaranteed to do is show you something new, it's their way. The worlds flotsam and jetsam is continuously on a grand tour, and nature is forever revealing her strangeness; I find no end of weird shit where the land meets the sea. Take these stones, shrink wrapped in sheer seaweed. I couldn't help wonder if somewhere in that there might not be a solution to part of our packaging problems. Groovy looking, whatever.

Slip sliding away

The cliffs at Hordle are moving so fast that you can almost hear them moving, in fact frequently you can actually hear and see them moving, as randomly a section of the upper gravels cascade towards the sea, like pennies falling from the 'push the penny' arcade game.  Whilst the cliff base bulges as the viscus layers of ancient marine clays slump into the waves under the weight above them. They've had to move the fence line back a few meters for a new path, as the path has disappeared in some sections. I reckon up to 1.5m to 2m has gone down in the last couple of years. I've seen whole archaeological features disappear in my time walking this path, just beyond this point only one of the many gun platforms which made up a gunnery school range remains in situ, and that only tentatively. The majority of the platforms a strewn across the cliff side or disappearing into the sea. A little way further again there was a line of World War 2 ATO's, Anti Tank Obstacles blocking Taddford Gap, a short valley which accesses the beach, have, all but for a couple displaced in the intertidal, gone. There's nothing to be done. Back a ways major coastal protection works have succumbed to natures desire for change, and even as they're replaced, you know it's an exercise in desperate Cnutism. You wont win again nature, and that's humanities biggest mistake, trying to flout nature rather than working with her. 

Home

It's taken time, 40 million years in fact, but this Eocene shell has made it home to the sea at last. To think this little shell last enjoyed bathing in a sun drenched sea 38 million years before our earliest earliest ancestors stood upright. Crazy. 

Eocene beach

I was walking in the Eocene this afternoon under the unseasonally warm sun, which reminded me that when these layers were laid down this area was a tropical lagoon. It's been a while since I'd walked these ancient horizons, and the landscape has changed noticeable. There are still land falls, slips and slides, and some are quite substantial, though for the most part the fluid landscape has been temporarily stabilized by colonizing plants and shrubs. Very successful colonizers are the Cat Tails, which now cover swathes of the wetter areas, Willow trees who I was surprised to see growing in quite some numbers, their canopies filled with bird song, and many of the areas which were exposed clays are now covered in a layer of tough grasses and horsetail. Still, there were enough exposed Eocene horizons to keep my eyes occupied. The entire surface of these exposed horizons is covered in shell fragments, as well as plenty of complete shells in various sizes and of various types, and the occasional sharks tooth. The 'Barton Beds' as they're called are well known in palaeontological circles, are an important research resource and some impressive specimens have been collected here. The best time for fossil hunting are over the coming months of bad weather, when land movement is common and virgin horizons exposed. Care needs to be taken as the area is dangerous and you can find yourself knee deep or even waist deep and in need of rescuing with one careless step; even today when the surface is still quite dry and stable, care was required. A great walk though, so much to see and think about.

Stick house

And the second little piggy built his house out of sticks, and it wasn't too shabby, neither. The best stick shelter I've seen in a while. On the Pennington Marsh walk there's only one small tract of woodland near Keyhaven, on the return route. It really is small, immature trees stunted by the harshness of their environment.  Approaching it I thought the view through the woodland looked clearer than I remembered it, at first I though the trees had grown a lot, but not in the few years we'd not walked here, surely. I saw a shelter and thought I'd take a peek, on closer examination I noticed a lot of sawn branches in its mix, then looking around I saw that most of the accessible branches on the surrounding trees were gone, hence the clear look of the wood. That and they'd used every piece of fallen wood too, making the woodland floor artificially clean too. From a forestry and timber production point of view the shelter builders have done the trees a favour and not really done any damage. Although, I don't think that was in their minds at the time, bad little piggies. Still, a well built shelter.

Pennington Marsh

We used to walk the sea wall which protects Pennington Marshes from the Solent regularly when the forest became too wet and muddy. Starting and finishing at Keyhaven, you can take a really nice circular route all along the coast and return via a variety of interesting inland tracks, with lovely views throughout. There's no shelter on this walk, it's open to what the elements have to share and although beautiful this morning, it can be very different in bad weather, still stunning, though. We hadn't walked here for some years though, as Norris got older he developed arthritis in his front paws, the sea wall path is hard packed aggregates and became too difficult for him to manage.  Unlike many of the walks we neglected in recent years, this one hasn't changed a bit. Nice way to start the day.

Slip sliding away

As the recent past slips from memory, so its physical remnants slip too.  These humble concrete slabs, passed by many daily, mostly ignored, their pasts on the whole unknown, are slowly making their way down the cliff side, sinking through the beach pebbles to disappear under the waves into oblivion. I understand that during World War 2 there was a gunnery range here, if you look, on some of the slabs you can see where the gun mounts were. And, occasionally I've even found badly decayed .303 cases on the lower sections of cliff. Though soon nothing will be left to see, nothing to prick the imagination and then the site will be gone, erased from the archaeological record and memory.  It makes me wonder how many other sites have gone this way over the centuries; more than you'd think, I'd imagine. 

Sharks Tooth

40 million years ago this sharks tooth was swimming around a vast lagoon, doing shark stuff. Since then it entered the geological matrix, ceaselessly moved through said matrix bound in a layer of compressed lagoon bed, then eroded from its ancient bed, it was carried by surface water until today this tiny 9mm tooth found it's way on to the beach and into my hand.  Time's some crazy shit.