Originally we had planned to do a scenic walk around the south of the island taking in the lighthouse at the point about half way round, this may have been a bit ambitious as it was about a nine mile walk but we had planned to give it a try until we received a message from Graham and Jan saying did we fancy meeting up as they were in the area. I told them we had been planning to go to the lighthouse and as they had never been to it either we decided we would meet them there and after a visit go somewhere for lunch so after breakfast we walked to the bus stop to catch the bus half way, this is as far as the regular bus goes, the summer service which runs all the way to the lighthouse doesn’t start running until the end of May. The bus driver was very helpful and told us where to get off then it was just a case of following the signs until we hit the only road that goes to the bill for just under a mile and a half until we reached the lighthouse. The walk was nice, quite flat with views of the sea. most of the way and we arrived about quarter last ten which just gave us time to check that tours were running before Graham and Jan arrived at half past. As they had about an hours drive we decided to have a coffee before heading into the lighthouse, I was a bit worried that it might be a bit much for Jan as she is now using a walking stick but she said she was happy to give it a go so at 11:15 we headed over to the lighthouse for the tour. The Portland Bill lighthouse is on the southernmost point overlooking the Portland Race where the currents can cause danger for mariners. A lighthouse has stood on Portland Bill for nearly 300 years, acting as a waymark for vessels navigating the English Channel, there is a Red sector light to warn shipping of the Shambles Bank which lies three miles off shore. Originally two lighthouses worked in tandem, if you could see the lights from them both you were heading straight for the bill and would definitely run aground, but these were replaced with the current lighthouse in 1906. It was manned until 1996 when it was automated and turned into a visitor centre not long after. Until 2019 when the lighthouse was modernised which changed the character and range of the main navigation light from 25 to 18 Nautical Miles, LED lanterns were installed relaxing the previous rotating optic. We climbed the fist flight of stairs which Jan found quite difficult as she currently has a bone spur on her hip and seems to be in quite a lot of pain, she decided that she wouldn’t continue and went back down, as it turned out once we got to the first level Chris looked at the remaining stairs which were fully open and decided he didn’t like the look of these so he also headed down, as it turned out that was a good call by both of them as the final floor was basically a vertical ladder where you had to hold onto the step above to climb it, I don’t think that Jan would have made it at all and Chris may have got up but probably not down! So Graham and I continued up to the top. It was a great day to do this as the views were lovely you couldn’t see the shambles very well but you could see the surrounding countryside very well, we even saw Chris and Jan sitting at the bottom of the lighthouse and managed to wave at them! By the time we got back down it was just after 12:00 so we decided to head to a pub for lunch. We had thought of trying one on Portland but in the end we decided to head to Weymouth to eat down by the town bridge where we had lunch yesterday, but we we ended up going to a different pub because Weymouth was so busy. The beach was almost unrecognisable with ice cream stalls, places selling bucket and spades and even donkeys that you could ride but lunch was lovely and we had a little walk along the esplanade and an ice cream from one of the ice cream stalls before heading back to the hotel. Originally we had planned to get the bus back but Graham said he would run us back so we had a lift and then had a coffee with them before they set off for home. We went back to the room for a bit of a relax before heading off to the bar for a drink to celebrate a lovely day.
