The credibility of our hiking guide took a massive hit on Saturday. Coming off a most successful hike to St. Catherine's Chapel above Abbotsbury, we decided to add the Hardy Monument to our day's conquests.
Dorset County has two native sons named Thomas Hardy. Anyone who was paying attention in high school will remember Thomas Hardy, the author of The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D'Ubervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd, Return of the Native, and others. But there was a second Thomas Hardy, born some seventy years earlier, and he found his niche in military, rather than literary, history.
As second son to a prosperous Dorset family, Hardy was not destined to inherit the family estate, so at age twelve he was sent to sea as a cabin boy. He progressed through the ranks and eventually served alongside Admiral Lord Nelson. It was this Thomas Hardy who cradled the head of the dying Admiral Lord Nelson as he lay mortally wounded on the HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar.
We might have known that the Hardy hike was doomed when we parked our car just three hundred feet from his monument but then turned away and proceeded to walk for six miles before eventually reaching it! We immediately missed the trail and went downhill for over a mile before discovering that nothing matched the description given in the book. Climbing back up to our starting point, we saw the obscure trail that we should have followed and started out once again.
The trail led us through pastures full of sheep, which was great fun. They are skittish creatures who wanted nothing to do with us, but we enjoyed being among them just the same. Passing through a fence later on, however, we entered a pasture filled with cows instead. Another pair of hikers approached from the opposite direction, each walking with two big sticks. "Have you encountered any aggressive cattle?" I asked. "Oh, you don't have to worry about these girls," one of them said. "It's only the young males that will challenge you. Just hold your ground, and you should be fine."
We came through that pasture unscathed and were farther along the trail when we entered another pasture. This one was home to what appeared to be families of cows. The first critter we came to didn't know quite what to make of us, and he let out a bleat. Hearing that voice, only one head looked up, and it belonged to a huge brown cow who locked us permanently in her gaze. We immediately struck the most nonthreatening pose we could think of...looking away, walking in the opposite direction, waiting for her young son to get far enough ahead so that we could proceed to the gate that would let us out of that field. Still not sure that she wanted us there, we began to look for alternate ways out. The only escape route we could see was over a wire fence that was clearly marked with a bright yellow sign with a lightning bolt across it: "Keep Away! Danger of Death."
If you'll look again at the picture above, you will see the fence that was our only exit -- one guarded by a half dozen young male cows! That's when we decided to burn our hiking guide book! We had to do something! Slowly, we approached the gate, calling out calmly to the cows in our path. "Hi, guys. Move aside. We need to get out. Scoot, will ya?" Slowly, they all ambled out of our way, and we were through that fence in no time flat!
The rest of the hike was uneventful by comparison. Once back at the car, we decided to travel on to Honiton, where an ice cream from the Honiton Dairy was a fitting reward. Dwight had two scoops of strawberry, while I opted for one of hazelnut toffee and one of raspberry ripple. (Next time I'll just get two raspberry ripple.)
Dorset County has two native sons named Thomas Hardy. Anyone who was paying attention in high school will remember Thomas Hardy, the author of The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D'Ubervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd, Return of the Native, and others. But there was a second Thomas Hardy, born some seventy years earlier, and he found his niche in military, rather than literary, history.
As second son to a prosperous Dorset family, Hardy was not destined to inherit the family estate, so at age twelve he was sent to sea as a cabin boy. He progressed through the ranks and eventually served alongside Admiral Lord Nelson. It was this Thomas Hardy who cradled the head of the dying Admiral Lord Nelson as he lay mortally wounded on the HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar.
We might have known that the Hardy hike was doomed when we parked our car just three hundred feet from his monument but then turned away and proceeded to walk for six miles before eventually reaching it! We immediately missed the trail and went downhill for over a mile before discovering that nothing matched the description given in the book. Climbing back up to our starting point, we saw the obscure trail that we should have followed and started out once again.
The trail led us through pastures full of sheep, which was great fun. They are skittish creatures who wanted nothing to do with us, but we enjoyed being among them just the same. Passing through a fence later on, however, we entered a pasture filled with cows instead. Another pair of hikers approached from the opposite direction, each walking with two big sticks. "Have you encountered any aggressive cattle?" I asked. "Oh, you don't have to worry about these girls," one of them said. "It's only the young males that will challenge you. Just hold your ground, and you should be fine."
We came through that pasture unscathed and were farther along the trail when we entered another pasture. This one was home to what appeared to be families of cows. The first critter we came to didn't know quite what to make of us, and he let out a bleat. Hearing that voice, only one head looked up, and it belonged to a huge brown cow who locked us permanently in her gaze. We immediately struck the most nonthreatening pose we could think of...looking away, walking in the opposite direction, waiting for her young son to get far enough ahead so that we could proceed to the gate that would let us out of that field. Still not sure that she wanted us there, we began to look for alternate ways out. The only escape route we could see was over a wire fence that was clearly marked with a bright yellow sign with a lightning bolt across it: "Keep Away! Danger of Death."
If you'll look again at the picture above, you will see the fence that was our only exit -- one guarded by a half dozen young male cows! That's when we decided to burn our hiking guide book! We had to do something! Slowly, we approached the gate, calling out calmly to the cows in our path. "Hi, guys. Move aside. We need to get out. Scoot, will ya?" Slowly, they all ambled out of our way, and we were through that fence in no time flat!
The rest of the hike was uneventful by comparison. Once back at the car, we decided to travel on to Honiton, where an ice cream from the Honiton Dairy was a fitting reward. Dwight had two scoops of strawberry, while I opted for one of hazelnut toffee and one of raspberry ripple. (Next time I'll just get two raspberry ripple.)
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