We took a couple of trips last week, and I still haven’t processed most of the pictures and may not for a while. Here’s a selection, though. We spent two days in Dorset. The first day we went to Corfe Castle and the Isle of Purbeck, famous for Purbeck marble, which is a kind of hard limestone.
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| Corfe Castle |
Corfe Castle has a great sloped lawn for rolling or running (which is what we did), as well as romantic beauty.
We then continued down the road to the village of Worth Matravers, which is picturesque in itself but also has trails down to the ocean cliffs. We walked down a long trail (1 1/4 miles each way). The children did very well, though Lily had to stop and fret at one point. We passed lots of cows, which stared at or ignored us, but wouldn’t get out of the way if they were in the trail. The trail ends where Purbeck marble was quarried. There are some modern ruined buildings, and the quarrying went on in artificial caves.
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| In the Quarry |
The quarrying was done at the top of cliffs– you can’t get down to the water– and I couldn’t see how they got the stone onto ships. Maybe we were there at high tide.
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| The Rasmusen Girls on the Cliff |
We stayed at a bed and breakfast just south of Dorchester. It was an old farmhouse that the current owner had used for farming pigs till he gave that up for hosting. It wasn’t as good as the B+B’s we went to near Wales, but we’ve been spoiled.
The next day we hurried to Charmouth, famous for its fossils, to go on a walk guided by someone who does that for a living. We couldn’t keep up with the guide, but we did find ammonite and squid fossils,and some petrified wood. The entire trip was inspired by a good
article on dinosaur bones that Grandma Rasmusen had sent us.
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| Ben on the Charmouth Beach |
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| Lily and Faith |