Jaunt

In contrast to night 1, I spend a rather a cold night on Rackham Hill... I didn't get to record any more but check out the Hard Up Hiker channel for what happened next... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoEN9C24Pag Chanctonbury Ring and the artwork attached, and bailing cos of the high winds. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

Where we spend a quiet lonely night in Graffham Down (apart from some deer), then create an artwork overlooking a cold and windy Bignor...later do a moonlight Flit from Torygraph Daily Mail posh Sundown Town of Amberley... But where can I sleep? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

A stealth camping trip from Cocking to Botolphe via Chanctonbury Ring.. This was the first part via Guildford..or Grotford as my family calls it! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

After the cold disaster that was Jaunt 2 in October I have been wary of camping in Autumn and Winter...and also I have never fully wild camped or took part in this poulart stealth camping trend. So on a cold slightly rainy November night I did both... Recorded in a secret location in Surrey. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

So I press on to Exmouth despite the lies of the distance markers (4! 3! No 6!) via the official western point the Geoneedle but my own end at Rodney Point (pictured) and get there with knackered feet as it goes dark. I find a pub, get a taxi, have a strange Pink Hooch then get back to the campsite. 2 years of work is over! Now what? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

Did two paintings at Ladram Bay then walked to Budleigh Salterton which I liked so much I took the Coastal Path to Exmouth the first chance I got. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

Showers, sudden winds, a tent 4am episode and walking from Salcombe Mouth to Otterton. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

I got to Branscombe and the Tea Room is magically still open, I get a lift with a wonderfully daffy Staffie named Cassie, and end up at Waitrose at Sidsomething. I walk back and create an ode to the Legendary Sidford Spar, and walk up THAT hill. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

Where I say the classic ' I think it' s rather flat' and find out it isn't... In a heatwave. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

Lyme didn't stick - issued with the campsite and a feeling that I was just retreading old.ground ans possibly cos of buses being stuck there, I left for Salcombe Regis near Sidmouth. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

Slightly drunken ramblings at the seafront at Lyme Regis, about the meaning of the sea and why I am so attracted to it --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

Walking into Lyme Regis after camping up and talking tech woes and the YouTube Shutdown of my hiking channel... This is a few days old, I didn't have the battery or connection to upload it. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

A ramble about home, and how the project has changed with the physical and economic challenges, and how I want to go forward. I was going to suffix this with 'but I went to Lyme anyway' - in fact I am on the bus now, but just found out Youtube has removed my hiking channel and really am at the 'one more thing I am going home' stage. But where is home? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

I'll Tumble For Ya... Literally. The kind of tumble I like is the big rock walls down the slopes of Corfe Castle or a tumble dryer (no sign of one of those). Not falling during a walk. Something I have never done so far, but it follows a similar fall on concrete steps at home. And it is the 13th podcast! Cannot make this stuff up... --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

Getting lost on the way to Chapman's Pool and why I hate Swanage so much with the story of California Farm and the secret quarry. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

Walking back to the campsite after a nice meal at the New Inn, talking about neurodiversity, Pathological Demand Avoidance, shouting at myself and honouring the last word of 'working holiday' --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

Finally get into Kimmeridge late but no headtorch, a surprise pub, return of the Children of the Corn path and an angry drunk Karen, brought in part to you by the National Trust's free charging and WiFi facilities! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

I made it to Arish Mell at 4pm with low water and tried filtering puddle water which worked but the filter kept blocking... I avoided the muddy puddle stream that the cows were shitting and pissing in. A good samaritan arrived and have me some water... I headed up to Lulworth Castle and then to Povington Hill, deciding to try and get the Tyneham to Kimmeridge section done as well...depite not having my headtorch, time for some dusk walking! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

Continuing the walk I get to Tyneham via Lulworth Ranges walking from Corfe --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

They:ll always leave the red flag flying here... Walking across Lulworth Ranges to get to Arish Mell and Mupe Bay on a boiling hot day. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

An enforced off day looking for stuff to repair my air mattress, lighter woes and camping stoves and thinking of running light without my art gear (which was the point of the trip!) --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

Quarries, airbed worries and knights in shining armour do a no show, the walk from Seacombe to Chapman's Pool via a dangerous Winspit Quarry, radar history, a 13th century Chapel, volunteer Coastguards and an Uppy Downy...and a nice meal in Kingston (not that one). But then a long night on deflating air mattress and a knackered next day and attempts to fix the bed, so will this trip go the same way as aborted Jaunt 2? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

Where I travel back to (Harry) Seacombe Bottom, do an art and then face the No Water Issue that abandoned the walk 2 years ago... --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

After a fairly successful day of three hours work in the only brief non-rainy part of yesterday, we have drama with deer and airbed puncturea which the latter might abort the trip... But I am trpapee here cos of strikes! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

Where I find out Corfe Castle has no food even at 9pm on an August weekday, take a late night trip into Swanage to scoff Chinese food on the seafront in the cold (again!) and tentcast about rain, new tents and gear. #jaunt4 Tent cast video version will be on my Hard Up Hiker channel when it uploads https://youtube.com/@harduphiker --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

After many months of prevarication, Jaunt 4 is starting now. Not sure if it will be a short mini jaunt or a longer one, depends on me, my health/knees holding up and the weather. Trying out new gear, so heading to Corfe Castle which I visited back in Jaunt 1, for a familiar place and shakedown for a new tent and then planning to do something I have never done... Do a proper hike with all my gear and overnight on the way to Kimmeridge - or several nights if it's needed, cos the rugged coast has few places to camp, and it is the last section of the Jurassic Coast to finish to connect all the way to Beer. Hopefully my first wild camp as well sometime during this trip. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jaunt/message

Heading back to London (spoilers!) cos after 18 days non-stop, eczema on sunburn and fatigue hit me like a truck. Disappointing cos I have only 16 miles to finish the Jurassic Jaunt bar a 5 mile stretch past Kimmeridge. So close but unlike King Canute (the name of the last piece I did in Lyme Regis) it is time to realise the tide is turning.. And the weather will be changing for the worst in a few days. Sad but time to head back. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

Back to the ruins of Gabriel Stanton, an abandoned village with a ruined chapel via the well of lost St Wite.. Or is that Wight? #jaunt3 --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

Back to Beer while the buses are running (no Sunday/Public holiday buses!) and going full shepherd stopping a dog worrying sheep and painting a watercolour of the cliffs near Beer. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

A much better and shorter walk to Seaton from the National Trust village of Branscombe. Had a look at the Old Forge (the only thatched forge left in Devon, wonder why that never caught on?) got a cakey from the bakery and drew St Winifred's Church, one of the oldest in Devon. Walked from their via a very steep connecting path to the Coastal Path. much more Uppy Downy Undercliff but far better than the previous day... You actually saw Cliffs! Coast! SEA! Beer looks really beautiful so going back there today earlier this time so I don't miss the bus like this time where I had go get a taxi back, last bus is at 5pm! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

Second half of the 'arduous' Undercliff walk from Seaton to Lyme... Trading standards should be involved! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

I visit Seaton.. Not Seatown, the seaside town they forgot to close down, but glad they did cos they have a nice big Tesco. I then decide to lug my plunder 7 miles over - and I quote 'Difficult and ardurous terrain'. Will I make it? Will I have to eat the packet rissoto raw before Lyme? All and more answered in part two. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

On Monmouth Beach looking for fossils and debating my artistic blocks and weather the whether stops the Jaunt. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

Again a misty horrible day... I draw and paint the viaduct (twice) and paint the distant sea cliffs at Lyme Regis and wonder whether the weather will change. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

From a drizzly rainy Puncknowle to a sunnier yet spookily misty Lyme Regis, I go hunting fossils and prosecco via ducks, sorry viaduct! Am I really copying the script of Sightseers unconsciously? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

It's raining, it's pouring Old Nick is Snoring... Or seemingly having saucy phootshoots in remote chapels...exploring Abbotsbury in the rain, and searching out the ruins and remains of the Benedictine Abbey of St Peter that didn't survive the dissolution but survive in various bits in walls, houses and indeed St Catherine's Chapel which is dry and I did two sketches with these strange people hanging around and waiting...as I left I realised the woman was in a black robe and while I was trying to dry one of my pieces in the doorway I heard all this demonic whispering and whistling from inside! So yeah I joke about Folk horror and all this stuff but it is there, even if it is seemingly cheesy Dennis Wheatley photoshoots by Spaniards.... --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

Really an addendum of the previous podcast - taking about why I hate walking on Shingle and going beyond the Jurassic Coast into East Dorset and why I am walking through the Children of the Corn field? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

I find somewhere I was planning to go by accident and spend time painting a ruined house called the Knoll. (photo does NOT do it justice BTW, but today is chucking it down so it will have to do). --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

I didn't get time to record a podcast yesterday, and had some battery word before that... - well I did record one and it didn't record! Here is the account of the walk to West Bay via Thorncombe Beaxon, quite Uppy Downy and very windy... I did quite a few pieces like these storm twisted trees at the top. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

A trip to Bridport to have a mooch around and do some food shopping, and a trip to Abbottsbury Castle (née Hill Fort) and I suddenly remember why in my bus timetable research last year I realised I had to get to Abbottsbury early in the day... Lack of late connecting buses at Bridport! So no Abbottsbury artworks bar a consolation piece waiting for the 5:50 bus so went back and did some pieces on the beach and got very cold in the evening wind. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

A rather too long podcast going from pissing around the campsite doing Necessary Shit™ and getting frustrated how I am A Bad Lazy Walker to being out on Golden Cap being blasted with wind and rain and how I'd like to be bored at the campsite noe please. And ending on a call to arms to artists - where ARE you? I am working alone out here, getting wet and cold. And no, working from photos does NOT count... --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

With a cap in my hand (not left in my tent) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

What happened on Friday (the jelly leg episode) really made me worry if I has to abort the trip if my legs could not cope with the much smaller hills vs Golden Cap. So I felt I had to go back when it was cooler and after 3 days recovery conquer this and regain my confidence...looking like an Old Testament Shephard with a t-shirt wrapped around my head... And did 3 artworks along the way (it is Bat HEAD not Hole, please do not write in!). --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

... Or why does Cerne Abbas remind me of a mix of the village from Children of the Stones, Summerisle, Corfe Castle and Chiddingfold! (I said Godalming on the podcast but on second thoughts that is a bit too urbane with it's fancy big Waitrose). I finally visit the Cerne Giant after planning it for two trips... I did have to take a sneaky taxi ride cos I just missed the bus in Dorchester, if you have ever seen Dorchester you'll know why I didn't want to spend nearly 3 hours there wating for the X11. Gilling around Weymouth is bad enough! Shame cos the last bus from Cerne is 6pm I could not try those lovely pubs out (only 3 survive from the original 12 so no The World's End here, definite vibes of Hot Fuzz though). --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

A short rant/heated discussion (really this should be called RantCast not TentCast) about walking, people in their insulated car bubbles and disconnected world and how lack of knowledge of your location is hurting the planet. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

I got bored hanging around the campsite and head off to Preston and draw a thatched cottage then jump onto the bus to Durdle Door where I stayed last year... This time heading the other way facing the hills that defeated me from the other direction. Still too hot (indeed ambulance and coastguard are there waiting for the inevitable chaos) and feet are still too unhappy to tackle it so I painted two watercolours. One of that view which you can see in the episode arr, and a 30 minute timed piece of Durdle Door itself. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

I don't just draw and paint seascapes on these trips, I explore the llldrier local sights too. Here I am discussing this piece of the 14th Century St Andrews, a rant about Holiday Parks and art education and how that adversely affected my drawing. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

Walking from Eweleaze towards Lulworth we find shipwrecks, bunkers, white nothes, a good cliff way we watercolour and that my legs turn to jelly now on the extreme Uppy Downy bit after White Nothe especially on one of the warmest days of the year! So we abort, miss the bus cos of said legs, meet some kind strangers and come back to find an ant Invasion in progress at the tent! Can we have less eventful days please? --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

Seems strange for an artist podcaster to muse about not recording things but I talk about experiencing the moment and how technology or the desire to share/photograph can spoil the moment (and my history with that). And how it relates to my artwork while drinking my morning coffee (the first DIY one of the trip, unlike last time this one tastes great). Blue bee attracting towel shown in photo (bee not included) --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

Chaos with a collapsed tent at 3am and high winds, a tent move and the first drawing but feeling wiped out with heat and lack of sleep when the wind dropped. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message

It's a supermoon and finally in Weymouth - well two long miles away at my favourite campsite Eweleaze Farm. A long walk in heat with a very heavy rucksack then a panicked putting up a tent before darkness as helicopters appear and the whole site has to look as you struggle to put up your tent! Then I find the food has stopped at 9pm so have to make a midnight rissoto. After all that I am chilling on the beach like last year, drinking brandy and planning my trip and decompressing... Well I try to apart from weird people who come and wave at me. Clomp Clomp... --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/jaunt/message