Kiwi Roaming

We reluctantly left Bruton, after the second of our amazing lunches, and headed to the Jurassic Coastline where we visited Weymouth and Lyme Regis. We had booked a seafront B&B at the end of the Weymouth esplanade and enjoyed the quirky, yet seemingly typical, beach side town experience common in many UK coastal towns. Below is the view from our room, and our building up close and from afar.

The sandy beach here is a few kms long, with esplanade on one side and shops, hotels, restaurants etc across 4 lanes of traffic on the other side. There is a carnival (collection of rides) on the beach at the far end where we are staying which spills across the road into a large park space as well. The sea is completely flat and very shallow, there were hundreds of children out swimming and loads of paddle boarders, we also watched a surf life saving school with kids of all ages and experience out there training.

To the east of the town is a wide inlet and river which leads to a massive marina, across the river are cute old buildings painted colourfully so they stand out in the sunshine. The marina is accessed via a bridge that opens up and is also the main way to cross to the other side (of course). Our B&B host told us they used to be at war across the river and there is still a cannon ball lodged into a wall on this side as a reminder of times gone by.

Lining the river on our side were pubs and restaurants and it was totally humming. We explored the town for a while, walked the Esplanade and encountered a massive fundraising motorbike ride so someone got to enjoy reminiscing about bikes he, Jeremy, Daniel and others had all owned when they were younger.

Once evening hit we found ourselves a Tesco Express to get a can of cider and coke to share, then visited one of the many Fish and Chip shops for our dinner which we consumed sitting on the river wall next to a fishing boat in the sunshine. There are “don’t feed the seagull” signs everywhere and thousands of gulls circling above. It was a lovely way to spend a sunny evening even if a piece of fish cost £11.30 and scoop of chips £5!

Walking back to the B&B we could hear a band so headed onto the beach to find a free concert in full swing. The band were on the deck of a kiosk bar so we got a drink and found a table to watch and have a sing (90’s – today covers of The Killers to Sam Fender) was fun watching the crowd on the beach carrying the tune and dancing. Besides we still haven’t been to a gig.

Full English Breakfast in the B&B at 8:30am sharp, we were definitely the youngest couple by decades. A wee walk around so the photographer could take a couple of snaps then we drove to nearby Lyme Regis for the day.

If you have small children in your life Weymouth would be a great holiday destination. Wide sandy beach, shallow, still water to wade and swim or paddle board in, lots of tat shops and the carnival too. For us, it was a novelty and we feel the rundown town would be dreary in wintertime.

Interesting history wise, many WWI and WWII operations were based here with much of the D-Day fleet departing from the harbour and both Anzac and American troops based here too. There is an Anzac memorial along with other tributes to those we lost in these wars, least we forget.