Walk 21 -14.0 miles - Total 274.4 miles - To Go 725.6 miles

Haven Point, Studland, Old Harry Rocks, Swanage. Haven Point to Sandbanks.







Passing Sandbanks where Harry Redknap and the rich folk live we start at Haven Point where we take the ferry across the short channel seperating Poole Harbour from the sea. We get our directions from Darren a local from Poole who is cycling up to Old Harry and then along Purbeck Ridge to Corfe Castle. We walk through Studland and up to Old Harry Rocks. Old Harry was Pirate Harry Pay whose missus was with him till she fell in to the sea in 1986. It is an idyllic spot except for my discomfort with heights. My legs feel like jelly seeing Rob sit right by the edge with a sheer drop below him. We take a rest here and it is blissful. First time able to lie on the grass, meditate a while and soak up the sun. Gave Rob his first five minute meditation session.
I warned him that sleep is the biggest enemy of meditation even in this short time with the collective tiredness from walking he is tempted to drift off. As we rest here Rob gets a text from Tracy (one of our web queens in the team) who is at the Fish Store we were at yesterday. Tracy was down for a wedding yesterday and went in search of our Fish Store after yesterdays blog and saw our leaflet proudly displayed in the window. We wave to her from Old Harry.

The walk between Old Harry and Swanage along the headland is stunning. My legs are like jelly and my heart races as some of the drops from the footpath are scary. I walk faster to get it over with quickly. We meet Jeff and Carol from South Oxfordshire who ask us about local bus routes between Swanage and Haven Point and we actually know the answer. They are impressed with our 1000 mile quest and we learn that the Icknield Way we will complete our 1000th mile runs along one side of Jeff's farm.












We eat our home made ham and cheese sandwich in Swanage which was fine but a bit of acome down from our dozen oysters of yesterday. We meet Annie and Lyn from Haslemere along the front in Swanage. Annie had a friend with MS who died recently and saw the cruelty of the disease.


We spend at least five miles of our walking today learning Roman Key Card for slam bidding in bridge. We also explore the question 'what advice would you now give to your younger self' which has been wandering round one of my linked in networks. The latter parts of our walking are taken up waiting for texts on Blackburn v United and Liverpool v Fulham. Rob captures my delight when I hear United have dropped two points by drawing with Blackburn. Arsenal are still in with a chance of the league. Rob's mood dives as the final result of 0-0 for Liverpool comes through.


We finish our walk around Sandbanks looking at some of the £5m houses and appartments. They look a bit pricey to us with such busy roads in front of them. Another day full of sunshine, great thoughts and enjoyable conversations and we have now walked 50 miles in four days. A cup of tea and looking out from Steve's appartment on the surfers below by Boscombe Pier. Fantastic.

Walk 20 -11.9 miles - Total 260.4 miles - To Go 739.6 miles

Boscombe Pier, Hengistbury Head, Mudeford Quay, Christchurch, Boscombe Pier








Before walking today we decided to discover The Fish Stall at Mudeford Quay to get provisions for tonights meal. What a wonderful place. Sun shining and warm before 9am the world sparkles and there can be no better place to be on the planet at this moment in time. We meet Rebecca and her team in the stall with its mouthwatering fresh fish selection. We have a couple of oysters each and fresh anchovies in garlic and olive oil for breakfast. For tonight we buy dressed crab, sea bass (to roast in fennel, garlic, onion, thyme and orange sauce) and mussels and prawns for tomorrows penne marinara. The oysters are plump and delicious and we think we might walk back here for lunch. We stop off at Waitrose on the way back which I only mention as we met Caroline Beaucroft at the check out. Caroline is cycling 1000 miles from Lands End to John O Grote in 14 days to raise money for a Foundation School. She is so complimentary about our efforts and gives us both a big hug of encouragement before leaving us. Another example of the friendliness of people in this part of the world. We wish you well with your charity effort Caroline.

We start along the front in shorts and t shirts for the first time on our walking. The beaches are packed with Easter holiday makers. Families setting up in their beach huts for a day in the sun. Amazing places with cookers, cupboards, seats and tables. A home from home. After 1.5 miles walking today we have completed 250 miles and are a quarter of the way to our 1000 mile target. It seems a perfect moment to stop and celebrate this acheivement and we meet locals Tara, Emma and Steven who give up their seats and celebrate with us. Rob asks if we can stay for the day and although tempted I say we must walk on.

A little further on we meet beach ranger Annie who has the dream job. Annie looks after 1 mile of beach and her job is to make sure everyone is happy. She has a lovely smile and gives us great encouragement for our efforts.



The walk is stunning as we rise to the top of Hengistbury Head and at the top and look out to the Isle of Wight and Christchurch. At the top I ask Mariaka and Bruce Hemming for advice on the best walks on the Christchurch side. They ask who we are walking for and are then amazed at coincidences as Mariaka works at the Berkshire MS Therapy Centre. I also now notice that Bruce is wearing a top with MS Therapy logo on the front. Amazing coincidence and they wish us well. We are finding almost everyone we meet does know someone close to them who does have MS and the horrors this disease metes out to people.

As we descend to Mudeford we talk about creativity and who has it and who does not. We try to agree that everyone is creative and it is a matter of releasing your own creativity that is the key. Rob wants to release more creativity for his photography
interest.



As we are discussing this we come upon Lyn Cope who appears to be photographing a bush close up. . When we ask what she is doing we find she is taking a shot of some rocks in the distance framed with branches from the bush. Being very creative indeed. Lyn is impressed with our quest and offers great advice I like on making your feet recover and last longer after walks. The secret is peppermint essential oils and cream which should be applied to feet after a long soak in a relaxing bath. Sounds great and we must give it a go.



We catch the ferry over to Mudeford Quay and are given free passage for the charity so we donate the fare to our collections. Back at the Fish Stall Rebecca is pleased to see us and we order a dozen oysters and more anchovies this time in chilli oil and sit by the quay with a lunch feast set for kings. As we do so a crowd in their boat 'Soggy Pants' ask if we are the famous walkers. They have read about us in the Bournemouth Echo yesterday and recognise us! Dan, Dave, Chris, Sol and Sophie give us great encouragement and support for our cause.
Sol is a professional photographer so he and Rob are soon in to comparing their kit and technique.


We notice how quiet we are for the last couple of miles of our walk and sense this is tiredness building up. A few stretches and flop in front of FA Cup football before settling down to our feast for kings tonight. Life doesn't get better than this.

Inspired by Thomas Hardy

I write a monthly piece for Pirton's village magazine called 'Being Alive'. My pen name is the Owl. This months contribution was constructed during our walks around Hardy country and Corfe Castle yesterday. As it was created during the walks I thought I would share it with you. Be your own poem and write your own poetry on the world and I hope you enjoy it.

Being Alive

Pirton is a poem maturing like the finest words of the greatest Poet that ever lived. With its own dreamings, lines back through history and new words layered in each week it paints a picture of beauty and perfection. Each reader keen to write their own contribution adding to what has gone before and wondering what will happen next. Once land of nature with rambling growth all competing for its space and reaching to the sun. Buttercups, daisy, tall swaying grass, muddy pond and a background of rising hills ever present. One day a lonely man wandered in to this spot and wrote the first lines of poetry upon the land. Perhaps a fire and maybe a basic robe as his only cover at night as he rests upon the future Bury. He looks up and sees a mound that will not become a Motte and Bailey for thousands of years yet. It is far too soon to formulate the idea of a Church beside. All evidence of his lines are now erased. As in a great poem where the initial ideas are worked and reworked until the the words take on a shape of meaning and rightness all of their own. Like every great poem although gone those first words are the seed from which the full flower flourishes. As ideas of farming take shape in man’s mind the poem of Pirton takes more solid form. Drawing lines, putting up fences, forming alliances and in constant battle with the forces of nature Pirton is simply writ and grows with each new line. Orchard, garden, butcher, baker, weaver, thatcher, singer, farmer, worker, school, public house, playing field and footpath each creating its own verse. Rivalries, friendships, protests, births, marriages, children and deaths each play their part in the unfolding of the poem of Pirton.
You look around today and see the poem as it is. You take your pen, dip it in ink and ready yourself to add a few lines. You play your part just like the lonely wanderer that came before. You are a poem and a poet placing your prose in its perfect place in this verse called Pirton. You capture the wonders of Being Alive and make solid your thoughts within this masterpiece. Knowing a neighbour will come along and shave it here, smooth it there and add a little more making your idea stronger and richer within the tapestry of artists taking shape. Keep reading and writing on this pretty scene. Cross out or add to what is writ and if you think it is right pull out a new sheet to write something new.
Every moment of every day appreciate and enjoy the wonder of Being Alive.

The Owl

Walk 19 -6.0 miles - Total 248.5 miles - To Go 751.5 miles

Dorset Pathfinder Walk 13 - Corfe Castle and Purbeck Ridge









Our second walk today making 15 miles in total. We met nobody on this walk but the scenery was stunning. Corfe Castle itself is an amazing apparition at the top of the ridge. A feeling of immense power and then neglect. It must have been really important at some point in history and now sits making a statement about past power and present neglect. As we ascend the ridge it starts gently and then is more challenging. Rob and I look at each other and say 14 days of Offa's Dyke and all this up and down to come. At the top the views all around are stunning and probably the best we have seen anywhere yet. One way out over hills and cute little villages and the other way back to Poole Harbour and the sea.
Our conversations continue. We have talked the election and what is best for the country. we have explored practical, new, marxist, post-structuralist, post-modern, post colonial and feminist literary criticism. Ideas on immortality have had their place and the reasons for many stresses in life have all been covered. We have an answer to all of these subjects and are fairly confident the answer is not right. What is clear and true is Virgo's cannot retrace their steps if they make a mistake on a route. They would rather walk many more miles by a circuitous route than retrace one hundred steps and carry on!

Walk 18 -9.0 miles - Total 242.5 miles - To Go 757.5 miles

Pathfinder Dorset Walk 23 - The Heart of Hardy Country - Higher Bockhampton, Thomas Hardy Cottage, Waterston Ridge, Stinford and Higher Bockhampton.





What a treat today. Rob and I are both readers of all the Thomas Hardy books in our youth. The wonderful Tess of the D'Urbevilles and Far from the Madding Crowd and the oh so sad and gloomy but so well written Jude the Obscure. Memories of poetic descriptions of the countryside around Dorchester/Barchester whetting our appetite as we walk around the places of his inspiration and visit the cottage in which he wrote 'Far from' and 'Under the Greenwood tree'. We are not disappointed. We start near his cottage and reflect on being close to such literary genius. It is closed for refurbishment and we see a planning application for a ticket office. On seeing this Rob tells me he will add to his will a clause that no ticket offices can be set up by his house for future generations. I tell him not to worry about this! The cottage is in a tranquil spot in the middle of a wood with wonderful views all around and a lovely cottage garden to wander around as those mind massaging sentences work their way through the unconscious until they emerge requesting a place on the page.
We walk along a while and meet Peter and Meg Mountenay out on their morning walk. Enjoying retirement they are interested in what we are doing as their daughter in law has MS and is really struggling. They understand the horrors of this disease and wish us well with our efforts to raise funds for research and give hope. They had read about and supported the work of Professor Robin Franklin.

We now head off towards the Waterston Ridge. I love all the names around us with Puddleston, Dorchester, Charminstor and Stimford all in our orbit. As we walk along the ridge I point out great tits and skylarks that appear to be joining us on our walk. The tits seemed to keep about 10 paces ahead as if leading us on. We stop along the ridge at a memorial to Richard Spicer, who died in 2007 at the age of 21, looking out on a typically wonderful Hardy countryside view. We don't know what happened to Richard but it reinforces to all of us the importance of enjoying each day we have on this earth as we never know how long we have. The view is wonderful and we take a break and just take it in. We are so lucky to have this great weather to appreciate it.
I start a poem which needs much more work but here is the start.....
Scene of ridge hill and plain
Conjures up a sweet refrain
Man's hand writ large on the land
Tilled, furrowed, farmed all nature banned
Hardy with words describes
Scenes of beauty man now hides
.....well lots more work to do...but so enjoyable to write.

We continue on in to Higher Kingston Farm. On our left a herd of bullocks charges towards a very fragile fence between us and them. Rob playfully thinks this is fun and has his camera out for shots. I must confess my heart beats faster as the fragile fence is between us and a trampling. On our right a procession of tractors pulling smelly fertiliser and spreading it across the field. I wave to each tractor driver and consistent with all the friendliness of people down here every one waves back.The smell is very farmy! We come upon the source of the fertiliser and meet Stewart Holland who tells us the fascinating science of recycling cow shit. He is lifting stone covers that have been in place for twelve years and underneath house the slurry from the cow shed. All their bodily discharges flow through this space and creates the fertiliser that was being spread on the field we saw earlier. Every twelve years they have to clear out the sludge at the bottom that gathers. What a smell and what a sight but Stewart is no longer disturbed by the smell and just gets on with his job.


On to Stinsford Church where Thomas Hardy's heart is buried with his parents and wives. The rest of his ashes are in poets corner at Westminster Abbey. A very tranquil spot again as we think about him going for his walk from his cottage by the Frome to the church and playing viola and violin with his father in the church. The church is really well kept inside for a congregation of less than 300 but with visitors of thousands from all over the world coming to pay their respects to the great Thomas Hardy. Sheila is doing a fantastic job making it sparkle for visitors. We meet Dorothy and Alan Gregson from Burnley. Rob actually identifies the accent from his visits to his sister at nearby Blackburn. Rob and Alan exchange talk about places they both know up there. Dorothy is clearly well versed in Hardy books and aspects of his life also. A pleasure to meet Sheila and Dorothy and Alan in such a wonderful spot.

We reach the end of this first walk today and I am intrigued by the Volkswagon Camper in the car park. Images of the 60's, flowerpower and stories from friends who travelled Europe and Australia in similar models. We meet Barb the owner and her daughter Jenny and I ask if it really can be a travelling home. Wonderfully it is. Barb has been to Spain in it, travelled extensivelly in the UK and shows me the sleeping arrangements and living quarters. I lose her to Rob as he and her share their interest in photography. Then we meet Bec and Stuart who with Jenny are studying at Weymouth College. They are all preparing, as part of the Patchwork Theatre Company, their version of Midsummer Night's Dream. They will be performing at Weymouth College on June 18th and then taking the show on tour. Go get tickets and support them in their show. Get in touch with them at patchworktheatre@hotmail.co.uk for more details.
Now off to Corfe Castle.......

Walk 17 -9.3 miles - Total 233.5 miles - To Go 766.5 miles

Boscombe Pier to Bournemouth to Sandbanks to Boscombe Pier







After a break of writing in Spain for me and golf and back pain for Rob in Marbella we are back on 1000miles4hope. It seems strange driving down here in sunshine and warmth and so different to that first 220 odd miles round the London Loop. The Easter Holidays in full flow here with the beaches of Boscombe and Bournemouth packed with sunbathers, swimmers, volley ball games and surfers making the best of a calm sea. We are grateful to Steve and Catherine (my brother and sister in law) for putting us up for this section of our walk.

We start at Boscombe Pier with the support of the Bournemouth MS Society. We meet Alan Lyndsay (President), Jane Lindsay (Support Officer), Mike and Ruth Lander and their daughter Karen Bainbridge. They are all doing great work here in Dorset and are one of the largest MS branches in the country. We talk about the challenges they are facing with Alan, Mike and Karen having MS and their supporters Jane and Ruth who also live with the disease. The bright smiling faces of grandchildren Lewis, Millie and Sophie completing the family scene. Gullen Petty has joined us from the MS Society in London.
We all talk about the work Robin Franklin is doing at Cambridge University to find a way of repairing the Myelin damage caused by MS. This is what all our efforts are about. We are walking to raise funds for Robin's research to give hope to people who are fighting against this cruel disease. It was great meeting all these people giving us a send off. Hattie from the Bournemouth Echo caught the photographs and Fiona the journalist is writing up a story to be published next week.



Our walk along the seafront is a real pleasure. The beaches are packed and everyone seems happy. A real contrast to the mud, snow, wind and cold of our London Loop walks in the past. People are friendly. Everyone is trying to read our 1000miles4hope t-shirts and some stop us to ask us what we are doing. The best being Mary who thought we were Australians with our hats and was intrigued to know what we were doing. She donated on the spot and told us about her enjoyment of Offa's Dyke putting fear in to us saying it is a hard treck with a lot of up and down. I turn to Rob afterwards and say 'I am a little bit worried about Offa's Dyke' and he say 'Yes, me too....a lot worried'.
We come upon Ben and Wyatt and a coterie of Southern Belles revising Bournemouth style. Ben (Simon) and Wyatt (Garfunkel) sing all the learning for exams while the Belles look on adoringly taking it all in. Good luck with your exams it looks to us like you got them beat!

A little further along we come across a piece of art created by Ella with her shells in the shape of a butterfly.




A few years ago I expected my wife Karen to be very impressed when I told her I was taking her to Harry Ramsdens for a special celebration meal. I couldn't understand why she was not as impressed as I had expected her to be. I then discovered that I had got the restaurant name wrong and it was Gordon Ramsey I was wanting to take her too. She was then impressed and the man himself was there and talked football to me and charmed Karen off her feet and gave her a birthday kiss. Well today Rob told me Harry Ramsdens is the best fish and chips on the planet except for Andreas's fish and chip shop in Woodford ......so we had to give it a go. Actually not bad. There we met a wonderful group. Dawn and friends with their children at the biggest table in the restaurant doing all the hard work of creating a great Easter holiday while their husbands stay home to 'decorate' in this week of european football, masters golf, grand national, fa cup and real madrid v barcelona. Thanks for your donation Dawn and friends we really appreciate it enjoy your holiday and be understanding if the decorating has not progressed as far as you expected....it has been a tough week for us boys. I am an Arsenal fan....and even though we lost I was amazed watching Messi. As I write this Liverpool are beating Benfica and Rob is very excited. Particularly when the ref changed his mind and gave a goal he had disallowed to Liverpool.
Robs back seems ok. Stretches done and hopefully he gets the right Liverpool result and are ready for more miles tomorrow.

1000Miles4Hope

Rob and Len will walk one thousand miles
Step by step, hill plain bog with smiles.
Talk of subjects deep and ever so wide
In search of answers to problems inside.

Meeting people of interest
Between each place they need their rest.
‘Who are you and where are you from?’
Sets tongues wagging to their own hum.

Back, ankle, calf, knee and neck ache
All part of the challenge they make.
Reach limits stepped over by word
To stop now would be so absurd.

The aim is for much money to raise
So MS we can fast erase.
Feeding RF’s brain for ideas
We hope will take away all tears.

So many now helping the cause
And all deserving their applause.
Tell more people they should join
In our search for that vital coin.

Walking one thousand miles 4 hope
Up and down each challenging slope.
Making friends and bringing much cheer
It will be one fantastic year.

Rob and Len