Charmouth Beach, Dorset

Well if ever anyone wants to know the quickest way to my "happy" place, then just show me the way to the beach!

For me the combination of the sound of the sea, the fresh air brings me such joy.

While I can imagine in the height of summer Charmouth beach would be very busy, but when visiting in May their was a reasonable amount of people  There was enough space for everyone to able to spread out so it did not feel over crowded.

I have a fascination with the variety of colours and the incredible history that goes into the differnet pebbles found on beaches.  But the variety at Charnmouth was just immense.

The beach is made up of rocks going back to the early Jurassic period over 195 million years ago.  Comprising of layers of mud, silt and clay layers that were laid down in a shallow sea.

It is just incredible to think of the history and whilst we did not find any fossils which the area is known for, I was so happy to see the rocks.

This rock was just incredible with all the different colours.

We were so lucky with the weather being a lovely 18 degrees with a nice breeze you can not go wrong.

So alongside admiring all the rocks we also checked to see if we would spot anything in the rock pools.  Their certianly was a good variety of barnicals attatched to other big rocks.

When we visited I did not see anyone use the beach huts, but I have a feeling that they would certainly well used during certain times of the year.  

But at a cost of £498 for a small hut and £620 for a large between May and September, it is not something I shall experience!

This was the view over to Lyme Regis which you can in low tide walk along the beach and reach the town.  What a great walk that would be.

For a sense of scale of the gigantic cliff I asked my friend to stand near by to show just how huge it is!  Athough behind her you can see where there had been a recent landslide which must have been terrifying to see.  

Worryingly some people where there with there hammers chiselling away at the cliff face trying to find fossils.  I can't lie seeing people smashing one rock on another in the hope of discovering a rock and hammering away I did find really sad.  If I came across a fossil that nature had exposed that would be incredible, but it honestly just felt like vandelism to hack away and very rarely find anything.

Whilst the sea is not a crystal clear blue it was still lovely to take a dip and feel the water rushing up over your feet, it was so refreshing and fun thing to do.

The inspiration is just everywhere when you look closely, I mean just look at this incredible vivid green algae.

 

We also came across these amazing looking shingle formations where the cliff face had fallen.  But it looked like it was from another planet.  In amongst it were tiny amounts of what looked just like Devil's Gold when combined with the shingle with little spots of gold popping out.

On the walk back to the van we came acoss what I would image are very photographed rock statues that someone had spent time creating.  They were just perfect.

I had also spent a good couple of the most enjoyable hours sat crotcheting.

These where the rocks completly different from Teignmouth which I had to bring home and cherish. You can just look at some rocks and see so many different things in them.

So that was the end of another incredible day.

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