Camping in Dorset

Don't let the pictures fool you......  Our good traveling luck came to an abrupt end as we drove 2 hours southwest to Dorset, famous for its quaint fishing villages, miles of sandy beaches, and shale and limestone cliffs that continuously erode to reveal fossils from tens and even hundreds of millions years ago.  We had organized a camping trip with friends from school and our neighbors, the Bennetts to the Dorset Coast, having picked campsite that sits atop a cliff on the sea's edge.  Unfortunately the cliffs only accelerated the gale force winds that were blowing when we arrived.  The initital attempt at putting up our tent (which we had yet to use) resulted in its complete flattening, breakage of one of its irreplaceable (in the UK at least) poles, and a giant tear in the rainfly.  Had others not been arriving soon to join us, we would have used our good sense to pack up then and there but sadly did not.  After duct-taping the pole and rain-fly, with the help of near-by campers, we got the tent set up and then spent the next couple hours helping our friends do the same.  Dinner was spent largely chasing food and plates that were being flung at 40 miles per hour from our laps in the wind, and the night was spent holding the tent off of our faces as it buckled in the wind every few minutes.

Things looked up the next day, as the wind abated slightly and the sun poked out of the clouds from time to time.  We looked for fossils on the beach, visited several quant fishing villages, found a great country pub for lunch, and took a long walk along southern England's famous and incredibly gorgeous coast trail that extends from Kent in the east to land's end in Cornwall to the west.   As violently as the wind blew the first night, we were torrentially rained upon during the second night.  Not only did we have to pack up in sheeting rain, Meade had acquired some sort of food poising during the night and was vomiting up his soul every 10 minutes while packing up.   His only accomplishments for the next 24 hours were to get in the car, get out of the car, and get into bed when we got home while I had the luxury of unpacking from our wind and rain-drenched weekend and soaking up the inch of water that had collected on the floor of our trusty green Rover sedan from all of our wet gear.

The kids, as they often do, slept well both nights, and thought Dorset's weather more to their liking than  had it been sunny and hot.