Feeling refreshed from our night in Church Knowle (I highly recommend the local pub and the Shepherds Hut on the farm) we call our local taxi lady who takes us to the cafe above Kimmeridge Bay – owned by her sister and waitressed by her daughter.

Breakfast is very good, we are joined in the cafe by what we believe are local fisherman and bomb disposal experts! I guess we are about to walk across the Lulworth Ranges.

The weather is somewhat disappointing – cold and misty! A fingerpost tells us we have a 6 ¼ mile walk to Lulworth, not too far but the map also tells us we have some steep inclines to navigate.

Just before the ranges we pass Kimmeridge oil fields, apparently the UK’s oldest producing oil well – the nodding donkey pumping some 80 barrels of oil per day!

The ranges are somewhat uninviting with signs advising bombs could explode and kill you if you stray away from the path and rolls of barbed wire around the gateway, I’m just pleased they are open to visitors today and we can continue our walk.

Yellow markers lead the way, one concern being able to see the next marker in this mist, especially with the fear one side of falling over a crumbling cliff and the other side of being blown up! The countryside is dramatic and the walk strenuous to say the least – Tyneham Cap is the first of several steep inclines. We pass few other walkers but each one says ‘just wait for the next incline!’

As we detour into Tyneham Village the rain starts to take hold and we shelter in the quaint little theatre, admiring the array of tools lined up – the village was requisitioned in 1943 by the War Office for use as a firing range, the last person leaving a note on the church door which said “Please treat the church and houses with care; we have given up our homes where many of us lived for generations to help win the war to keep men free. We shall return one day and thank you for treating the village kindly” . Sadly they never returned.

As the rain slows we continue back to the cliff path – scenery is dramatic and somewhat disturbing with rolling hills of grassland and gorse, traversed with roadways and dotted with the occasional abandoned tank. The cliff walk does indeed get steeper and steeper . . .