"Elvis & The Giant Banana"

Flying over Lulworth way...

As activity levels go on a weekend in mid April...this one was pretty good! A nice weekend quite honestly...weather wise it was the dogs bollocks! Summer most certainly seems to have arrived early...as have the butterflies! They are everywhere I go it seems! Very unusual for me, but quite welcome! Soaking up this very sunny feeling...flitting across my sky like some kind of perfect weightless fly-by!
Great for cycling...kayaking...thinking...& feeling good!
Friday evening was spent riding my brand new bike "Elvis" along side my friend Lee. We started out in the last of the days sun and ended 27 miles later in the dark streets of Teddington & Strawberry Hill. Just local...local bats...local midges...local ducks and a local and rather dippy hedgehog. No...not really...as I did have my light trained on the poor buggers eyes...like tiny black pin heads. The black moist bubble for a nose sniffing his way through the stinging nettles. Nice to have a back garden as big as Bushy Park!
My! That Elvis is fast! Lighter & faster! He is already beginning to feel like part of me. Covered in a fine dust from the bone dry trails of Pitch Hill, Bushy & Richmond Parks, he does a great job of showing me who is The King (Kona).
Then onto Saturday morning. An early (for me) start of 09:45 to go meet WarriorWoman (http://www.warriorwomen.co.uk/2007/04/14/bptt-update-for-14th-april/) after her 5km run around Bushy Park and then take a ride from there along the Thames tow-path all the way to Richmond Park. See her Blog to see a photo of us, Elvis & The Stumpmeister (WW's bike). The lap of RP mostly consisted of clinging as close as possible to the outside perimeter wall route (& totally out of bounds for cyclists apparently), staying away from the Tamsin Trail (designated cycling/walking route) for a much more fun lap with small sections of single track, plenty of roots, dips and rapidly appearing trees! There are even three very narrow, small bridge type things (with no sides) to cross. I think I may have shot off away from my cycling buddy for the day more than once as a result of the orange & white thoroughbred that I was still getting to know...sorry WW;)
All in all, there are far less dogs, small children & their competitive Dads to crash into by taking this route and it also makes the lap slightly longer too....which is good. And it leaves the flat gravel track (with a few steepish hills thrown in for good measure) to the plentiful runners. But that didn't stop one running man...more of a human Gazelle...keeping up with us on the off-road sections and even passing us up the hills! What ever he was, he wasn't human...His pace never changed and he looked as if he was hardly breaking sweat! Amazing! The sun was out for the day again and followed us everywhere. It was very warm and there was hardly a breeze. Another 30.50 miles and alone now, more butterflies on my way home from Sheen Gate, I was done for the day and needed to rest my poor arm for the next days kayaking trip to Lulworth Cove.

Another...even earlier start, almost directly after a very Lovely dream (which I am writing as we speak...from notes I made right after waking) about a beautiful female kayakist...and I was already standing out in the sun by 08:55am to greet Lee and load the car up with two ginormous plastic (recyclable) kayaks and all the kit & kaboodle one (two) needs for an eight mile paddle along the South coast.
Lulworth Cove to be precise. I truly don't beleive that the weather could've been any better! The temperature was perfect as were the wind conditions...even in the lower South area on my very person turned out to be a relatively wind free zone;) After a two hour drive with Lee eating far too many Opal Fruits...(Oops! Starburst now right;)...and at serious risk from drowing in his own spit and developing the greatest bellyache of them all, we were by the sea and unloading the boats. Christ! The boats and all our gear in them are sooo heavy! Good job the walk to the beach was only a few yards!
The water where we were going to launch looked perfect...a quick look out to the mouth of the Cove looked to be perfect also..in the past, the exit from the Cove has been very choppy and dangerous for kayaks...but today...
A quick paddle around the almost circular shaped cove...with the bottom cut off...a smallish Royal Naval, battleship grey ship was anchored right in the middle. On the front deck was a very fit looking man in combat trousers, missing his top, lifting a very heavy set of weights. I noticed the red flags were flying around the cove which meant no turning left and heading East! Otherwise one will get shouted at from a rather serious looking man hidden in the cliff face as they did on other attempts of ours to do just that. On occasions, you can even hear machine gun fire and cannon blasts as the hidden men in green shoot their loads (ahem) into the sea! So West we head towards Durdle Dor and beyond...the water clear and of a pale greeny/blue colour. Calm & not very much wind at all was the order of the day...with plenty of early (very) summer sun. The tide was down at it's lowest and the bottom of the cliffs were stained black from millions of years of being submerged twice a day by the sea and all it's miniscule inhabitants.
Stroke after stroke after stroke...a slight head wind...so slight, so as not to hamper our forward motion. The light breeze whispering past our ears...the current dragging us slowly but surely out to sea. A little more pressure on the left hand stroke every several drags through the water sorted out our intended trajectory. Coming back will be the opposite arm and push us inland and would test my right elbow, but at least I had a fix of Factor VIII in the back of the boat...& lunch & towel & trainers & phone (no signal), two cameras, plenty of drink, dry clothes, swimming goggles (too cold for that)...no wonder they were so heavy lifting them down to the sea!
Stair Hole, a small hole through the cliffs leading onto a rather rocky beach was our first port of call for a photo oppotunity, but the tide was so low & the swell was rising & lowering about three or four feet with every wave. It would have ripped a hole in the bottom of our boats if we had gone in! We would try again on our way back when the tide would hopefully be higher.
Off again...the warm sun resting pleasantly on out backs. Past Dungy Head and into St Oswalds Bay where at the farthest end is a beach sheltered by jagged rocks called The Man O' War Bay and just around the corner is the giant and very impressive Durdle Dor. This giant natural limestone arch was also a little out of bounds seeing the tide was so low! So back to the monotonous act of paddling towards our very own private beach. The beach was just out of sight and just around the corner from the chalk headland that is Bat's Head. Here is a single small stack of isolated chalk undoubtedly left behind as a result of a giant arch eroding away to to leave this decayed but still gleaming tooth. Right next to this, tucked right under the headland itself is a narrow tunnel that leads right through to the other side and our beach. As with the other arches enroute so far, the tide was too low to attempt. We'd try this on our way back later in the afternoon.
Just as we rounded Bat's Head we saw a couple of kayakists heading right for our beach! Granted, the beach is about half a mile long, but we wanted one all to ourselves. So on we continued to do just that. When I say private beach, what I mean is that it can only be accessed either by boat or falling onto it from the shear chalk cliffs above! We had boats so suicide wasn't even considered;)
Infact, after just another half mile or so we saw it. Another stretch...much smaller than our original beach and better by a long shot. We were hungry and before beaching, we took a quick look around the corner of White Nothe headland to see what was there...not a lot...more cliffs and brilliant white, boulder strewn beaches...but what really put us off lunching there was that there were people there. So back we went and beached for lunch & a well deserved injection of Factor VIII. The giant banana and Lee's kayak lay out like a couple brightly coloured sharks beached on the shingle. Towels down for a lie down...didn't lie down...after sandwiches we went and explored the chalk rocks and boulders (see photo). It was like being a child again. I wanted to throw stones into the sea...I tried and it hurt! I swapped arms and tried left handed...absolutely useless!
Sat down and stuck a needle in my vein instead and wondered what the scene would look like if a freak passer by were to witness such a shooting. But that wasn't about to happen, as we were literally secluded. I wanted to stay there all night! I checked my mobile...no signal...The butterflies had flown away with it and dumped it into the ocean...I just wanted to say hi. Lee & I tidied up and filled the boats with all our stuff for our trip back to Lulworth. The journey back was warmer as the very faint headwind west, was now blowing alongside us and towards the East. Quiet...except for the gulls screaming high in the cliffs and the odd jet ski & boat engine thundering by in the distance. The paddle back seemed to feel slower, but looking over to the cliffs, I could see we were moving at quite a reasonable speed. The tide was still very low, but besides Durdle Dor (which still looked too dangerous to try), we managed to kayak right through the tunnel (blown through more like) that cut through Bat's Head. The clear water surronding the entrance & exit to the tunnel was filled with a seaweed that resmebled thick long strands of a greeny coloured bowl of noodles. I wondered what on earth might be lurking down there, feeding on it! The swell was still upping & downing, exposing the small but not very kayak friendly rocks with every few seconds. The hull of my boat caught on one slightly, but was pushed back up by the return of the next swell.
Back through the Man O' War Bay and onwards to Stair Hole. With the water level still being quite low & quite rough as the sea poured into and then out of the smallish arch we were only able to go in and get out without taking a photo from the inside. It was great fun though, but had to have our wits about us the whole time or we would have been thrown up & dumped onto the rocks!
So that was it...just a short paddle back into Lulworth Cove, minding the rocks on either side of the narrow entrance and after three hours of paddling & eight miles of coast done we were back on the beach and loading the car up for the three hour drive back home to West London.
Next stop Llanberis, North Wales for a tad of reminiscing. That is where butterflies are born don't you know;)


Jason






(C) JPT 2007.........1018.64 miles.