Let’s Do That Again! – Around Dorset and meeting some Flickr Friends!

Did I mention traffic circles? Sorry, I stand corrected…roundabouts. 😉 Today we got up early, found a place for a breakfast bite to eat, and then were picked up by a Flickr friend, Danny. He really showed us a great time. I honestly can’t even recall all the names of the places he took us, it was such a whirlwind tour. I do know we visited Poole Harbour, the second largest natural harbour in the world, out to Sandbanks which hosts the fourth most expensive properties in the world (apparently John Lennon started the fad when he bought a house for his Auntie…now the likes of Elton John, Ron Howard and others have homes there), stopped to see the “puffers” (steam train), visited Corfe Castle, Wareham and Milton Abbas (Thanks for correcting me Danny!).

We stopped in Poole Harbour and watched the ferry to France leave…quite an amazing sight to see such a large vessel navigate such a narrow channel. It also seems strange that it only takes two hours by ferry to reach France. I’ve been across the English Channel by ferry many years ago, I know it’s not far…but it seems strange that a run just longer than that to Vancouver Island lands you in another country.

Corfe Castle was amazing and the town below simply stunning. Danny was a gem and gave us his and his wife’s National Trust passes for entry and he stayed back while we took about 30 minutes to poke through the ruins. We felt badly that he didn’t come in with us because I’m sure we could have learned ten times more had he done so. But we appreciated it so very, very much!

Danny took us to a wonderful little village of thatched houses, Milton Abbas. The roofs are so cool. It’s amazing to think that there are still thatchers out there who do this kind of work. The town felt like something out of a story book!

From there it was a whiz back into Poole Harbour to meet the rest of the Flickr bunch. Danny dropped us off outside the pub and went to park the car. It’s easy to find strangers when you have a common hobby…just look for the table of people with piles of camera hardware! One fellow looks kinda like you Rae…so Tony was easy to find. I knew Helena was a blonde, and had a fairly good idea what the others look like (as well as one can from a 1cm square icon).It was so much fun to meet Danny, Tony, Helena, Jen, Donna & Mel! Funny how you can spend time on the internet and end up making friends with strangers halfway around the world. And I never would have believed that I could make friends through a medium that I have always considered to be somewhat impersonal…but what an amazing bunch of people!

We hung out and had a blast and compared camera equipment…what a bunch of geeks! The day was clear, sunny, and hot….and of course, we didn’t think to put sunscreen on. After lunch and a few pints 8 photographic geeks wandered the Quay and then took a ferry ride around the entire harbour. Fantastic! I go four weeks in the Mediterranean without a sunburn and manage to get a bit of a burn in Southern England. Not bad really, I just burned my neck a bit…so I can truly claim to be a redneck!

Eventually everyone had to disperse and we said goodbye. Danny was willing to continue to be at our disposal and taxi us about, but we had imposed enough and didn’t want to cause another divorce 🙂 so we asked him to drop us off and took our leave.

The sun was dropping and we decided to take another shot at Durdle’s Door so drove back out that way and hoofed it down the steep steps, and I mean STEEP! We kept looking back up thinking….”that’s gonna burn…” But it was worth the effort, although we were unfortunately about 10 minutes too late to get the setting sun on the rock itself.

After we clambered back up the steps and back up the hill we headed for the hotel…we were exhausted. I turned the navigation system back on and worked out the route back. There was this one roundabout that we had encountered on our way into Bournemouth the first time….we thought we had it right and when we took what we thought was the proper exit, it slingshot us back onto the highway going the wrong direction. So as we approached it this time we were ultra careful and plotted our way properly…and we got slingshot back onto the highway going the wrong direction….again….I said I could navigate down through another way again but Kirk was insistent….he was going to beat that darned roundabout! So, we found another roundabout and circled back for another attack. And we managed it this time!

Eventually, after one or two more wrong turns, we fumbled our way back to the hotel and stumbled into bed and fell unconscious.