After another cold, slightly damp night sleep on the Airstream kitchen table The Wig and I departed Happy Days with no plan other than NOT to go back to Hackney. We needed at least one night in luxury, it was a holiday after all, but in order to do this we needed some modern technology. So we set off in search of Wi-Fi and ended up in Poole.
Adios Wimborne.
Poole was another place I had never been too and another place with, sadly, not much to see, thankfully though our old friend Hotel Du Vin saved the day with a delicious Mocha and free Wi-Fi so we soon had an idea of what we wanted to do. We would drive to Lyme Regis via Bridport and stay in the Hotel Alexandra. At £160 per night this would be our most expensive night of the holiday so far but The Hotel Alexandra has won a lot of awards and also made a point of mentioning the dressing gowns in each room. I would have paid £160 for the dressing gown alone at this point. Sleeping in a cold Daddy Long Leg nest will do this to a person
We arrived in Bridport at around 1pm and this ended up being one of my favorite places of the trip. It's essentially a pretty little area of shops (not too many big chains I'm glad to say) but with the most amazing beach and coastline I've ever seen in the UK. Apparently posh cook Hugh Fearnly-Whittigstall comes here a lot and who can blame him. On a sunny day, it really is a beautiful place and well worth a visit. Bridport also had a couple of juicy antique shops, the first of the trip, which made me extremely happy. One more vase for the wedding hoard, what a great (and sunny) day this was turning out to be!
After some very delicious scampi and chips we set back off on the road to Lyme Regis. Another stunning seaside town, again seeming to comprise of one main street, and like Bridport, with interesting independent shops along it, it was a real treat. I think it was at this moment The Wig declared his anger about missing out on a lot of lovely places in England and was really annoyed with the people who knew about these places and had been keeping them a secret for him all these years. Poor Wig. Although he did have a point. Why had we never been to these places before?!
The most exciting thing about being in Lyme Regis was the chance that we may find fossils. I've never gone fossil hunting before but have been wanting to do it for a long time. I have no idea why. On arrival to Lyme Regis we soon realised this was basically Fossil Town. Mary Anning, one of the first and most prolific fossil collectors, made the majority of her discoveries along the coastline here well over 100 years ago. There were fossil's for sale, a fossil shop, a fossil museum, fossil logos EVERYWHERE and a fossil tour that we booked onto for the following morning. The Wig didn't seem particularly keen to be doing the fossil tour as he was more interested in going to Hix's fish restaurant, but little did he know, the next day would turn out to be the highlight of the whole trip.
To be continued . . .
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