Day 12 Devon and Dorset

A fantastic day today packed with blue skies, walking and stunning views. Today was definitely one of my favourites. We left our new hotel with full bellies after a delicious breakfast and headed for Lulworth Cove and Durdle Door. I thought that parking at Lulworth would be quieter than parking at Durdle - how wrong could a person be?! It was as though the whole of Dorset had the same idea!! Fortunately, there is a massive car park so we parked up, put the parking code in my phone, grabbed what we needed from the boot and headed off up the hill to Durdle. The walk looks quite scary from the bottom but I felt completely safe. There's a wide path and there was plenty of room for the masses to climb the very steep hill. When we met the people coming from the Durdle car park, there was a steep, slippery downhill section which was probably the worst part and we were grateful for sensible footwear and a dry day. We were stunned to see lots of people walking in flip-flops.
All along the walk are beautiful views but Durdle Door is stunning and I can understand why so many people flock there. We didn't walk down to the beach as that was a step too far for someone with vertigo but lots of people were walking down to the bays on both sides. (The main shot is to the left of the Durdle arch.) On the cliffs all around, people were standing worryingly close to the edge and it made me feel really uncomfortable so we headed back down.
Afterwards we walked down to Lulworth Cove which was pretty but far too busy to sit and relax on. After a few pictures from above, we drove to Lulworth Castle. This is worth a visit and was quite cheap to get in (£6 each). It looks perfect from outside but was ravaged by a fire inside. Thankfully it had been partly restored and it's interesting to see some of the fire damage as well as some of the original features and to read its history.
It was too early to return to the hotel so on the way back we managed to tick off one of my wishlist items which was a sunflower farm on a sunny day. Walking around was lovely. I know this sounds daft but I think they're happy flowers and that's how they made me feel! A brilliant end to a lovely day. Well done if you managed to read all that!!