Length: 22 km

Duration: 8:08

Ascent/descent: 635/545 m

Wayfinding: medium, erratic signage, some paths were diverted but not updated on OS maps.

Weather: overcast, shorts

Dinner: New Inn, Cerne Abbas

Overnight: Giant’s Head Caravan and Camping Park

Exhausted last night, slept for more than 10 hours. Woke up rested and recovered from yesterday, apart from a couple of nasty horsefly bites. The biting was painful, then the bite became itchy and in the morning was swollen and red within a surprisingly large area, as large as a small hand. The skin in the area felt tight, as if being stretched.

We left Ansty and traced our way back to the hill above, then descended again towards the next ridge.

The ford was fun. I was grateful that it had been kept that way. It was time to climb again.

We were left with a clear plastic tray after having tomatoes for lunch. So we picked blackberries for tomorrow’s breakfast. Picking and eating blackberries is surely one of the chief delights of summer walks!

After a lovely field that contained the ancient enclosure on a gentle slope, we came to a section of the path that overlapped with the Hardy Way briefly. The area was confused and overgrown in places. The mapped path was unpassable at a point, while the farm track didn’t quite join up with the path either. Some awkward scrambling was needed.

We arrived at the Giant’s Head campsite on the ridge line (altitude 240 m). After making camp, we walked down to Cerne Abbas to see its namesake, the chalk giant with two clubs.

Cerne was ancient and very beautiful. There were many points of interest: abbey remains, the burial grounds with the original spring head, the giant, a very good shop, pubs.

We had coffee and cake at the Royal Oak, and dinner at the New Inn. Both excellent. The Royal Oak had a warmed Dorset apple cake and a lovely feminine touch, with dried lavender bouquets in the loos. The New Inn was fancier and run like a hotel and restaurant. Both it and the Fox Inn from last night were in a category of their own, affluent country inns with good chefs. Their food was better than London gastropubs because they hadn’t fallen for the sharing-plate and nduja fads. Hopefully they will never need to if they always have woodruff to work with.