Well, there’s nothing like Lyme Regis on a stormy day in what should be late spring/early summer.
I like Lyme Regis. It’s my first port of call if I decide to go fossil hunting and I’ll look for fossils even if I only went there for the fun of it. The two go together like fish & chips or Mary & Anning (although if the car parks are full or I’m in an experimental mood I might go for Charmouth). I went last week specifically for fossils. It’s for a badge that’s getting its own post… well, when I actually finish it. It’s currently scheduled for June 7th but I may have taken a bit much upon myself and it may get put back. But in short, I went to hunt for fossils!
I’m more prone to going to Lyme in shoulder season and winter. In summer the roads get gridlocked and there isn’t a parking space to be found or invented by 10am. But I’ve never been there on such an appalling day. It started ok. It started with a hint of blue sky but by the time I’d got petrol and driven down, it had deteriorated severely. I drive an elderly Fiat Panda. It’s a little car, a city car, but it’s surprisingly tall for its size (my boss’s mum once had to go in it and she approved of its height, and this is a woman who hates everything and doesn’t have a good word for anything). What that means is that when I’m driving down exposed roads in windy conditions my car wobbles. It’s like driving a miniature yacht, catching every breeze. It’s disconcerting.
I made it to Lyme alive, although I nearly lost the car door when I tried to get out. I park at the top of the hill, in the Charmouth Road car park. The more central ones fill up a lot more quickly. People don’t really want to descend 114 steps to reach the eastern end of the sea defences and they don’t want to walk down the steep road either. Well, neither do I but it seems to work for me.
What I realised, 114 steps later, was that although it was wet and windy and the sea was roiling and roaring and crashing, it was low tide. It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen. There’s this violent sea, deep chocolate brown from churning, but it’s all the way over there. You can hop down the stairs off the side of the sea defences and amble on the beaches and the rock shelves with no fear because the stormy waves just aren’t here. I’d never imagined anything like it. In windy weather the sea beats at the walls and the cliffs and you stay well back – except apparently at low tide.
I took my time ambling west to my favourite fossil cliffs. The sea had to be enjoyed. The rainbow arc of pastel beach huts. The sight of waves breaking over the pontoons at the end of the Cobb. Waves breaking over the Cobb. Waves breaking over the far end of the groynes. I was also taking some experimental photos for the aforementioned badge, so I took some time frowning and muttering over my limited success with those.
Then I reached the Cobb. This thing is a big stone structure, sort of semi-circular, a wall to protect the harbour from weather like today. Very weird to see it successfully doing its job while the boats mostly sat on the sand because of the low tide. The current Cobb has been here since 1820 but there’s been a harbour wall of some kind since at least 1328.
In good weather you can walk on the raised outer edge. There are stone steps in various places along its length, requiring various different degrees of agility to ascend. It tilts slightly down towards the sea where there’s a short but sheer drop into the water, some of it dangerously shallow at the best of times. I know, you were expecting deep there. If you fall into water, you want it to catch you, not to plunge onto shingle less than two feet down. Not good for the spine, a fall like that.
The day I was there was definitely not a day for walking along the outside. From right over on the sea defences I’d seen fountains splashing over the edge of the Cobb. It’s probably not enough to sweep you away but I wouldn’t take the chance. It would also be incredibly slippery up there. If my anemometer is accurate, which I don’t think it is, I was seeing winds on the borderline of gale forces 3 and 4, a gentle to moderate breeze. I think the reality was more like 6, a “strong breeze”, in which “wires whistle”. They certainly did – the yacht club is next to the Cobb and the boats, safely on the highest part of the beach, were making a right racket, which was almost eerie and unearthly.
So even if you could keep your footing on the wet wall with water flung over you, it’s windy. I stayed off. Instead I found a spot to take photos of the irregular fountains coming over the top. They only happen between certain points, where the waves are hitting the wall at just the right angle and other than that, it was perfectly sheltered on the inside edge. Now I was out of the worst of the wind I could appreciate that although it felt like it, it wasn’t actually raining.
I didn’t have to wait long before the first people came to run the gamut of the fountain. A man in an orange raincoat, a wonderful contrast with the grey stone and sky. A few more people. I chuckled as they tried to scurry past or dodge the deluges. And then I had a stupid thought. I’d do it myself, go and visit the far end of the Cobb. I’d been studying the waterfall. I knew how it worked.
I was already wearing my waterproof jacket. I made sure my camera was safely zipped away and I checked the zips on my phone and glasses pockets were also secure. Ready. I walked towards it and then I paused, just before where the water fountains. Better check my jacket was pulled all the way down and all my layers were tucked into it – which is when the sea threw an entire wave over the Cobb and into my face.
I don’t know if it was a waterfalling slosh or just a spray. It was very wet and very unexpected and it tasted of saltwater. I scurried, keeping close to the wall. It had to be less violent there, more sheltered. I don’t think it was but I got past the soaking zone unscathed – or no more scathed than after my unexpected shower. Sorry, I didn’t take any photos of myself. I was more interested in keeping my camera safe and dry than getting selfies for a blog post I didn’t even know at the time that I was going to write.
In good weather you’d climb the wall for views. In this weather there was nothing to be seen or done at the far end of the Cobb. I’d got soaked for nothing and now I had to return. Either that or camp out here until the weather improves, and May was showing no signs of doing that. I had to return.
The sea was merciful. It had had its fun, it had got me once and it was happy with that. I retreated to a bench well clear of the splash zone and took out my mini travel towel. I’d brought it with some vague idea of paddling but it came in handy for drying my face and my camera. I washed away the taste of seawater with the drink I’d also had the foresight to bring and then I sat, with wet hair and trousers, and watched the other fools try their luck.
Funny thing. It had hit me three-quarters on, from the right. My back was bone dry, despite the English Channel launching itself at me. My jacket had done an excellent job of protecting my top half so it was really only the front of my trousers that was wet. Dripping wet. And because I’m an idiot, I was carrying waterproof trousers! If ever there had been an opportune moment for putting them on, facing a sea-shower was it. Now it was too late. Still, I’d noted that although it was windy, it wasn’t really raining. A good gentle-moderate-strong breeze would surely dry me out fairly quickly?
By now I was within sight of the fossil cliffs. Now my day could begin! But… the sea was closer to them that I think I’ve ever seen it. The tide had started to come in since I’d landed on the eastern defences and now it was close enough to the cliffs at the west end of town for me to do an instantaneous risk assessment in my head and come up with “no!”. Mary Anning would have done it. Mary Anning also nearly got killed by a rockfall in these very cliffs in stormy weather and her dog was killed. These are loose and hazardous cliffs, that’s why there are so many fossils. Wet weather waterlogs then and then the uneven weight causes them to crack open and crash onto the beach below. Every collapse opens a new patch of fossil-filled rock. How many rockfalls have I seen in local papers? How many times have I despaired of grockles picnicking on sunbathing on the spoil? How many times have I shaken my head and declared “Wouldn’t catch me getting that close to those cliffs right now.”? So I turned away. I’d come to look for fossils and I was leaving without even trying and I knew I’d be leaving Lyme Regis alive. There would be other days.
Of course, I still had to walk back to the car. I detoured up into town, passed all the bakeries and restaurants and their interesting smells in favour of some bread and cheese from the Coop which I’d eat in splendid and safe isolation in my car, out of the wind and rain. I did pop into my favourite fossil shop but I didn’t buy anything. I’d have liked another haematite ring but I’d have to try on the whole basket to find the right fit and that didn’t seem very pandemic-friendly. When I buy my house, I’ll invest the small fortune in a mortar and pestle but that also wasn’t a job for today and I have enough small polished gemstones, tempted as I am every single time.
I’ll give the weather this: by the time I’d shopped, walked back, explored the eastern cliffs of Black Ven – also good for fossils, due to regular large mudslides – from the safety of the sea wall, as the tide was washing against its foot, and climbed 114 steps back to my car, I was dry. I was sweaty but my trousers had recovered from my shower. I cooled down while eating the bread and cheese and then I departed, beaten by the weather. I’ll have another go another day and we’ll see if I can find an ammonite.
