Chalk tracks, East Chaldon

[puddleshark]

Walked from East Chaldon up to the coast, through a landscape of small round hills, secretive valleys, snaking chalk tracks.




The lane to East Chaldon, passing the many barns of Vicarage Farm.


Cottages along Chydyok Road.


Chalk track up onto the downs.

Last weekend the Met Office forecast heavy rain, but it hardly rained at all. This weekend the Met Office forecast 30% chance of rain, but it actually rained for 70% of my walk...


And there is nowhere to shelter up on the downs above East Chaldon. It is an intensively farmed landscape, with most of the hedges ripped out, and the remaining hedges trimmed back to a vestige, providing no shelter and presenting no barrier to livestock.




Having snaked up onto the downs, the track snakes back down again.


Chydyok Farm.


Among the stubble fields.

Past the Ward Stone round barrow, the sea suddenly visible in the distance.


It was raining over the Isle of Portland. It was raining over me as well, but I found a convenient piece of rubble from a demolished farm building to sit on. Drank my coffee with the rain gusting on the wind. Watched a ship out at sea passing by, fading in and out of the rain.




The path to the infamous Scratchy Bottom. But it was the path not taken today. I carried on towards the more sinister-sounding Daggers Gate.


Onto another nameless lonely path through the hills.






Fractions. Four-fifths of a mile to East Chaldon, and four-fifths of a mile to Daggers Gate. The landscape is strange here, and so are the people who put up the waymarkers.


The path snakes back down to East Chaldon.

Comments

[heleninwales]

"Chydyok Farm" is an unusual looking name. It doesn't look English at all.

The weather does look gloomy in the photos, but it otherwise it looks like a very pleasant walk and with fewer steep hills than we have here.

[puddleshark]

It is a very strange spelling for Dorset, Chydyok, but I think it probably comes from the same root as Chideock, from the Celtic for "wooded".

It was a lot more gloomy than the Met Office had forecast. Sunny intervals? Ha! But at least it was nice and peaceful.

[heleninwales]

Ah! A Celtic origin is very plausible. The Welsh for "wooded" is "coediog".