Breakfast at the Crows Nest before we head out for an early morning New Years Day walk. Cannot believe it the weatherman has got it oh so wrong – 2019 is starting off with a glorious sunny day.

Picking up where we left off after our yummy meal at the Cove House Inn, we finish walking along the promenade and descend to the beach below. Chesil Beach is a mere 18 miles long – owned by The Crown, Ilchester Estate and the National Trust.

Pedestrians are discouraged and often restricted from walking the whole length of the beach due to the presence of little terns, mute swans, other ground nesting birds and even hares! Despite my love of coastal walking I am more than happy to be walking the inland coastal path on our next walk as the shingle is extremely tiring to walk on. We therefore amaze at a small group of runners attempting an early morning jog.

I can see the sun glinting on the houses on the mainland, so we continually turn back our gaze to witness the moment that the sun peeps over the highest point of the island– our first shadows of 2019 are a welcome sight as it slowly gets warmer.

We walk just two miles then descend down the mound of stones. We spot a little tern on a lake, a lone early morning fisherman and a clutch of eager ‘New Years Day’ twitchers arriving for their days twitching. Finishing at the Ferry Bridge, close to where we started our walk two days ago, there is a pub which is sadly not very welcoming – it appears to have been closed for several months. It would be a great little earner with this fine view, but that seems to be the way for too many pubs these days – I guess it will be a wonderful apartment ‘with a view’ coming soon?