In search of the ancestor
As all other travel plans for 2020 were scuppered by the on-going and seemingly never-ending pandemic, other arrangements were made. I had already made plans for the trip south but had been hesitant. I’m not at all sure why. It was at the end of last year when I first thought about Stonehenge. One of the most famous and iconic ancient sites on Earth (certainly in England) yet I had never been. There was a good reason for that. Not just that it is 190 miles away, or that it is generally teeming with tourists from home and abroad. I was also put off by the limited access visitors have to the site. At least that is what I was lead to believe. I had long thought that the stones were only accessible by a few specialists, archaeologists, researchers and television crews. Only at the summer solstice were any others let in and then only those with some pagan, druid, Wiccan or some other hocus-pocus witchery connections. Everyone else, the teeming hordes, the hoi-polloi, the camera-clicking rabble, had to watch from the sidelines, from the roped-off area with the ‘Keep Out’ signs. I didn’t want to be one of those – but I was wrong. Access within the circle is permitted at certain times and with limited numbers. At a price, of course, and pre-booking only.
It was winter. I didn’t want to go too early in the year, in the dark, the wet, the mud. Spring, I thought. Late March. Yes, after the equinox and as the daylight lengthened. Before the tourist buses disgorged their loads of worldwide bucket-listers. Then the virus struck and no one was going anywhere.
The spring turned to summer and the solstice went uncelebrated at the stones. No druids, no King Arthur, no wise-women in billowing medieval robes, no witches, and no me. We sat around, bored and listless, collecting toilet rolls and stockpiling pasta and paracetemol. We learned how to keep our distance and quickly lost the self-consciousness embarrassment of wearing a mask in public, or even in private. We washed our hands until they bled.
By late summer it seemed as though things were improving, the strictures loosening. People were beginning to move again. Some even took a chance on a flight to foreign parts but this was risky with rules changing daily and lockdowns anywhere always imminent.
Out of the blue, my sister, missing her Spanish holidays, asked me, ‘Have you ever been to Dorset, the Jurassic Coast?’ ‘No’ I replied, wondering why she was asking then quickly making the connection: Monkey World! I told her of my abandoned plans for Stonehenge and how they could be resurrected to include her beloved Orang Utans. I would get to the stones before we moved on to Monkey World and the Dorset coast in what would be hottest and sunniest mid-Septembers for years.
The pandemic has caused so much distress; deaths, business closures and, potentially, economic ruin for the nation, but there is always a plus, a positive. For me it was Stonehenge. My very first visit to this most-visited of monuments was an unexpected relaxing pleasure. Under a cobalt sky, I arrived at the almost deserted visitor centre late in the afternoon. A few people were milling about, waiting for the next shuttle to the stones. ‘We usually run four buses an hour,’ one of the guides remarked, ‘but since the virus, we barely run four a day.’ That’s fine by me, I thought, perhaps a little selfishly. It was, from all aspects, the perfect conditions for my visit and the old mysterious stone circle did not fail to impress.
The following day, by way of a detour en-route to Weymouth, the sun still with us, we drove to Bulford to see the kiwi. In contrast to Stonehenge, the little bird was a huge disappointment. A tiny speck far in the distance lost in the dust and haze of the morning. We didn’t linger, the Cerne Abbas Giant was waiting. While he proudly displayed his magnificent manhood, it was obvious to anyone at ground level that the birds had the best view.
Weymouth seafront, though busy, looked like it had seen better days. It had a feeling of shabbiness and neglect. Perhaps it was the weather, the sky was now a featureless white which seemed to deaden the colours in the town’s buildings. On the horizon, as if adding to the sense of gloom, the deserted cruise liners were parked, helpless victims of the pandemic. Sad ghost ships with nowhere to go.
The following day saw the return of the sun, the sky back to a magnificent cloudless blue. The mostly deserted car park at Monkey World was an indication of the lack of visitors. Though pre-booking was supposed to be essential to control visitor numbers to prevent the virus from reaching the hairy primates, it was clear that many were paying at the turnstile.
Finding your way around Monkey World should be a straightforward business of following the signs. It isn’t. There’s something wrong with those signs, and those maps with the ‘you are here’ indicators are as good as useless. The day was getting hotter, tempers were fraying, legs were aching, but we managed it. We found pretty much everything there is to see and Ang’ found her Oshine, which was really all she wanted. Sadly, for me, a speed camera on the way from Monkey World to Bournemouth found me. I wouldn’t know about it for several days.
Bournemouth was buzzing with tourists and sun-seekers, the beach as crowded as if it was high season. The ‘Rule of Six’ pushed to its limits. This should have been an indication of what we had ahead of us, but it never occurred to me that they would actually shut the roads.
Day four was to be a simple, leisurely drive from Weymouth to Lyme Regis. The roads, though not empty, were far from busy but arrival in Lyme Regis was another sign of what the day had in store. Visitor numbers had rocketed and car parks were filling fast. We didn’t stay long and I never found my fossil.
Then on to West Bay. I’d never heard of it but we went there anyway. It’s well known for some television drama which I’d never seen. The temperature rose and the crowds poured in as we were leaving.
The next stop on the tour was Chesil Beach. I didn’t know much about this place but yet felt drawn to it. Yes, I’d seen the movie of the book but that wasn’t it. From the coast road, we could see it, a sliver of shingle eighteen miles long. I followed the road to the southern end and the car park where the beach meets Portland. I scrambled over the shingle to the sea. I was amazed! I would have been happy to just sit there and watch the sunset, listening to the pebbles in the surf, the cool spray on my face. It is a magical place, even spiritual. Don’t ask me to explain.
Just one last stop, Portland Bill. The southern-most tip of Portland, it feels and looks like another country, the surface of the moon, or the end of the world. A strange place with its wild sea and never-ending gales under the still brilliant sun. Apart from the red and white lighthouse, the buildings are all the same colour, that portland grey. Even the vegetation is tinged with Portland dust.
Moving on from Portland, our final destination of the tour of the coast was to be Durdle Door, Dorset’s star of the picture postcard. Vast swathes of visitors earlier that day had the same idea. Car parks full, roads jammed and beaches crowded beyond all pandemic advice. By the time we were on our way, all access to Durdle Door was cut off. We had reached the end of the road.
So ends the Jurassic adventure. Nowhere left to go but home.