We arrived at Charmouth in the rain - the weather was not deterring all fossil hunters though some were already out looking.
We had a look round the Charmouth Heritage Centre which has excellent exhibitions on geology and fossils and some rather tempting books on sale. Next door was a fossil shop where again I could have spent a fortune.
Charmouth is one of the best sites to go fossil hunting along the Jurassic coast. The cliffs are main clay cliffs with harder limestone layers. Its best just to hunt among pebbles on the beach where,if you are lucky, you can find ammonites, belemnites, and perhaps even fragments of ichthyosaur bone. The rain eventually eased and we spent an hour searching
and, don't laugh, I was absolutely over the moon to find (just as I was about to give up) this ammonite fragment. Its a rather special feeling to pick up something that is millions of years old and know you are the first person to see it.
For lunch we drove up onto near Stonebarrow Hill. I had been told there were a couple of resident pairs of Dartford Warblers here and, never having seen this species, I was determined to have a look. Well, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack and you won't be surprised to hear we failed to see any.
It had started to rain quite heavily so we returned to the cottage mid-afternoon and then went our for a meal in the evening at a thatched pub called The Old Inn. The meal was excellent and the dessert of Lemon Posset with Almond and Pistachio Shortbread was exceptional - only second to the most delicious Lemon Meringue Roulade I once had at the Tower Bank Arms in the Lake District - all desserts are judged against that one :)
