15.09.2011 – 15.09.2011  22 °C

Nice leisurely start today as I had decided today to head off to Portland (a tiny island off the coast of Wheymouth).

On the way I stopped to see a ruined castle, Corfe, on the Dorset coast. It was a castle built in the early 1300s which has since gone completely to ruin. It sits high on a cliff overlooking the surrounding countryside and the sea. It was a great break this morning as the walk up to the castle was really quite picturesque. The castle is surrounded by this small medieval town which people still live in today! I was lucky today as the weather has held off so the views from the top of the castle were really magic! The grass is so green in this part of England and the sky is a really nice shade of blue! Just awesome.

After my clamber through the ruins I stopped to write a couple of postcards and had a cup of coffee before continuing my journey towards Wheymouth. The drive was probably all up about 2.5hrs but was again a bit stressful just because of all of the narrow windy streets that you have to drive in! Wheymouth is on the Dorset coast not far from Bournemouth. It is a fair sized fishing and sailing town and is to be the location for all of the sailing competitions during next year’s Olympics. I wasn’t staying in Wheymouth but just outside on a really small island that is connected to the mainland by a land bridge. This island is called Portland it is pretty specky!

I arrived at my hostel to discover that it didn’t open til 5pm so I kind of wondered what I was going to do for the next 5hrs or so whilst I waited til it opened up! I started off by wandering around the Portland castle. It was built by Henry VIII to protect the Wheymouth harbour and is more of a fort than a castle. It was used right up until WWII as a naval base and fort. Today all you can do is wander about the halls and check out the old cannons that still lie in situ waiting for a ship to attack!

From here I decided to drive up to the top of the island to see what I could see! At the top of the island is a really nice pub that has an outlook right over the Dorset coast and the Wheymouth harbour, so with the weather being so fine I whiled away a couple of hours having some lunch and soaking up the sunshine. Finally, I decided to drive right over to the other side of the island and see the lighthouse. By this stage it was getting quite late (around 4ish) so the light was just about perfect for taking photos of the surrounding sea and lighthouse! (I love it when sometimes you just fluke it!!)

I rounded out the day by enjoying a tasty dinner of lamb chops and veges and watching some idiot box in the hostel. (The hostel is totally empty—it’s just me and one other guy staying here!!) What a wonderfully relaxing day—off to Torquay tomorrow!