Day 13 in England: In the Footsteps of Mary Anning

 

Low tide waits for no one, and so three of us were up at the crack of dawn this morning to drive over to Lyme Regis and spend a couple more hours in the footsteps of Mary Anning.

Here's our complete itinerary for the day:

• fossil hunting in Lyme Regis
• back to Beer for breakfast and picking up the sleepyhead
• back to Lyme Regis again for sightseeing
• drive back to Gatwick Airport, stopping at a convenient local chain store along the way for souvenirs
• drop off the rental car, check into our airport hotel, and try to fit a hundred pounds of rocks and fossils into four carry-ons and four personal items!

Who knows how on earth we would have gotten all our rocks and fossils home if we'd been as successful at fossil hunting as I am in my dreams!

We parked by Monmouth Beach, then hustled west, where we puttered on the shore, fossil hunting and admiring the Ammonite Pavement:

We found a few pretty treasures of our own!

The best part, though, was imagining myself in the footsteps of Mary Anning. This stretch of coast was her backyard, and although she ranged widely both east and west, this was her home ground:

I'm sure I'm grubbing in the wet sand just like she did, only she was wearing massive wool skirts and I'm wearing a filthy pair of joggers:

Eventually, we had to make the long walk down the beach back to our car (funny how the walk is always SO much longer on the way back!) so we could go back to Beer and fetch our teenager before checkout.

I did wash my hands before I sat down for my last full English breakfast of the trip, but I didn't change out of my muddy clothes. Gotta stay true to myself no matter where I am!

In our early morning trip to Lyme Regis, we'd encountered little traffic and just a couple of dog walkers and joggers. By mid-morning, however, Bank Holiday Monday/Mid-Term Break was in full swing omg! Matt was a tentative but extremely careful driver during this whole week, and it was funny/terrifying to encounter so many absolutely terrible drivers on these, the narrowest roads outside of Dartmoor--honestly, I think some were even narrower than in Dartmoor! We missed by centimeters being collided into by a car that turned into us around a blind corner, and half the cars we saw (including ours, ahem) spent half the time driving half onto the sidewalk. And that was even with us parking in a pay lot at the edge of town--the traffic we saw in the middle of town was absolutely bonkers!

British friends, WHAT ON EARTH.

Nevertheless, I made it to my ultimate destination, the pinnacle of this trip: 

I was so lucky, because this museum is closed on Mondays. The only exception?

School breaks!

So me and all the rowdy school kids and all their parents happily crowded inside on this Half-Term Monday, and I could achieve my dream of worshipping at the feet of Mary Anning, on the spot where she once lived and worked and kept her fossils.

The Lyme Regis Museum is built on the site of Mary Anning's former house, which was torn down in 1889. The only known depiction of what her house looked like is this drawing--

--which the museum turned into this model:

I love those picture windows. I imagine them all full of fossils!

The museum has a wonderful mix of exhibits. It has fossils collected (or likely collected) by Mary Anning--

I have explained to Matt numerous times that I am in desperate need of a giant LEGO ichthyosaur of my own, and yet what did I get for my birthday? Well, actually I got an absolutely awesome DIY model kit of Stonehenge and I'm thrilled with it... but I also still really want a giant LEGO ichthyosaur!

This fossil is a shark skull, the first of its kind and used as the holotype of the species. Mary Anning discovered it, collected it, and prepared it... so obviously it's named Hybodus bechei after Henry De la Beche.

This complete ichthyosaur fossil is on loan here while the Lyme Regis Museum crowdfunds the money to purchase it.

--items from the period in which she lived--

Look at all those pipes! I mudlarked so many of their stems on the Thames!

--and tons of other fossils collected in this area and donated by local fossil hunters. 

The gift shop was great, too. Here's me having an emotional reaction to JURASSIC CREATURE STUFFIES!!!

I'm supposed to stop buying "family stuffies" so I did not bring any home, but I intend to revisit this ridiculous rule soon. The only stuffies that I so far own and insist on exhibiting in the family space are 1) an Edmontosaurus annectens, 2) a whale shark, 3) the exact same mermaid sequin dinosaur that the SpaceX Crew Dragon took into orbit as their "gravity indicator," and 4) Captain Ameribear, a Build a Bear that I liberated from a friend as we were setting up for a group garage sale. That is NOT too many family stuffies, you guys!

One of the exhibit labels in the Lyme Regis Museum mentioned that Mary Anning was buried at St. Michael's Church, "just a few hundred meters from the museum." So guess what I Googled next?

That's two of my most favorite heroines who have died of breast cancer, if you're keeping count.

St. Michael's Church, like Mary Anning's former house, has its back to the sea, and below the church there's actually a paved path that follows the coast and passes over the spot where she made one of her best discoveries. 

If you walk down the path to the end, you'll find Mary, herself, ammonite in hand, Tray at her feet, walking with purpose towards eternity:

Yes, I made Matt take a photo of me walking arm in arm with her, chatting like the best friends we are. I have a very vivid and active internal life!

My meeting with Mary was the culmination and final wish on my list for this trip, so we meandered slowly back to our car up the narrow streets of Lyme Regis, browsing in every rocks and fossil shop we saw along the way. We braved the last of the narrow roads, and Matt handled the A303 like a man who'd been driving here his whole life and knew every single rule for roundabouts:

On the outskirts of London, I found a shopping area that said it had a Sainsbury's, so we detoured over for Cadbury and crisps to take back home, and we had a lovely surprise! The teenager had discovered, too late in the London leg of our trip, a discount bookstore chain that she wanted to visit. This was our second to last day in the city, though, and there was not a location anywhere near us--but, alas, the day before, when we'd taken that long bus trip out to Pax Lodge, we'd seen one from the bus window but didn't know what it was! ARGH!

I felt terrible about it, because it was, like, literally one of two entire things the kid expressed genuine interest in during the entire trip, so omg I was beyond ecstatic when it turned out that this shopping area had The Works bookstore! 

Bonus: it also had a Sainsbury's AND a Poundland! All our cheap souvenirs in one convenient trip!

• Day 1: We made it to England!
• Day 2: Westminster Abbey, National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, and Six
• Day 3: British Museum and Buckingham Palace
• Day 4: Mudlarks and Southwark
• Day 5: Natural History Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum
• Day 6: Pax Lodge, the Tower of London, and Afternoon Tea
• Day 7: Back and Forth by Boat to Greenwich
• Day 8: We Careen Our Way to Canterbury Cathedral and Dover Beach
• Day 9: Dover, Hastings, and a Holloway
• Day 10, Part 1: All the Giant Rocks
• Day 10, Part 2: Stonehenge, At Last!
• Day 11: To Avalon with King Arthur
• Day 12: Tintagel
• Day 13: In the Footsteps of Mary Anning
• Day 14: Homewards!

Day 12 in England: It All Begins at Tintagel

 

It was definitely a Bank Holiday weekend! Breakfast was packed, and the hostess was freaking out. People kept trying to change up the combinations of their full English breakfast even though she admitted she had no way to keep their orders straight, and the Australian couple behind us kept making her go back and put more scoops of coffee in their coffee press, because "British coffee is weak."

Here's my dutifully complete full English breakfast, black pudding and all!

See my delicious orange juice? We kept sneaking back up to the community carafe for refills every time the hostess went into the kitchen to cry, so that she wouldn't be additionally distressed at how much we were hydrating. Everyone else in the restaurant barely touched the juice!

Here's the rest of our day:

• Tintagel Castle
• Dartmoor National Park
• Lyme Regis

Thanks to Matt attempting to ask for only ham, sausage and eggs for breakfast and therefore working the hostess into a dither, we didn't arrive at Tintagel right when it opened, and OMG it was crowded. We learned that not only was it the Bank Holiday Weekend we'd been hearing about, but also the next week was a nation-wide school holiday... we had lots of company everywhere we went for the rest of our trip! 

Much of the Tintagel site is on a headland whose access point to the mainland has mostly collapsed, so you walk across a beautiful pedestrian bridge towards the ruins of a 13th century castle built by the Earl of Cornwall:

There's the bridge connecting us to the mainland.

The tide was high during our visit, but during low tide you can explore the beach and walk into many of those caves: 

Some of us had a wonderful time exploring this headland, taking in the views and the vista and enjoying the height:

Others did not enjoy this, and huddled as far away from the views and the vista and the height as they could:

I'd been inspired to check out the logistics of this drive all the way to Cornwall solely because of its connection to Arthurian legend, which is one of the teenager's current Special Interests. In Le Morte d'Arthur, which we read together last semester (and in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History of the Kings of Britain, which we're going to start this week!), Arthur is conceived inside Tintagel Castle, where Igraine is hiding after Uther Pendragon takes a rapey liking to her. Igraine's husband Gorlois, Duke of Cornwall, got his wife the hell out of that party where Uther first noticed her, which pissed Uther off, so he used their departure without his permission as his excuse to wage war against Gorlois. 

While Gorlois was off fighting and Igraine was hiding, Merlin figured out a plan to get Uther inside Tintagel Castle so he could rape Igraine. His price: why, only their firstborn child, of course!

Uther had NO problem promising their firstborn child to a magician whose father was an incubus, so he was completely on board with Merlin's plan to magically disguise him as Gorlois. Wearing his Gorlois skin, Uther rode right up to the gates of Tintagel. His servants were shocked to see him, since he was supposed to be literally fighting a battle really far away at the moment. His wife was equally shocked, but Uther got his booty call.

He would have gotten away with it, too, except that the real Gorlois was actually right that second dying in battle...

Anyway, Igraine actually did come around to marrying Uther after her husband (and therefore all means of support and defense against a predatory, powerful king) died, and she, too, had no problem giving baby Arthur up to Merlin. Merlin sent Arthur to live with Muggles, and The Once and Future King is my favorite continuation of that story. 

This is the perfect spot, then, to pay our respects to the birth of the legend that's brought so much magic and beauty into my life:

Matt was so embarrassed to take this photo, lol, but the teenager and I were VERY into it! We're being real knights!

Also, cheese!

Also on the headland are the remains of a beautiful Medieval garden that the Earl of Cornwall may have had constructed to mimic the garden from the story of Tristan and Iseult. 

As you walk around the perimeter of the garden, stepping stones tell you the story:

After exploring the headland, we walked down the path--

--under the bridge--

--past the beach and Merlin's Cave, and then up the long, steep road back into Tintagel... and Cornish pasties!!!

This was our best meal of the entire trip. These Cornish pasties were DELICIOUS!!!

I wanted to be in Lyme Regis in time for the late afternoon low tide, but fortunately we had just enough wiggle room in our schedule for a quick drive and a short hike in Dartmoor National Park. 

The parking lot was teeny-tiny and tight, so the college student and I, the two who were the most revved up about hiking in Dartmoor, bailed and started our hike while Matt waited in the car in case anyone left the lot and he could squeeze in. The disinterested teen stayed with him, and to be honest, we didn't expect to see them at ALL. Imagine our surprise, then, when we saw these two figures on the horizon!

We were technically hiking towards Scorhill Stone Circle, but there wasn't any signage or really any paths, so what we actually did was wander up towards Hound Tor and simply admire the endless moor all around us. Here's a nice rock, though!

People live in Dartmoor National Park, as well, and our walk back abutted someone's sheep field and this very old wall to demarcate it:

Driving through Dartmoor National Park was some of our most terrifying driving yet. And it wasn't even the sheep that were often snoozing in the middle of the road, because we were only going about 5mph so we had plenty of time to stop for them.

Instead, it was THIS!

This is not a road. This is a HEDGE MAZE!

It is a single car-width hedge maze, complete with all the twists and turns that make it impossible to see what's coming from the other direction.

Fortunately, the one time we did encounter a car, we were near enough to someone's gate that Matt could back up, squeeze over against it, and the opposing car could squeeze up against the hedges on their side and creep past. I have NO idea what you're supposed to do if a car wants to pass you here:

At least it made the highways after Dartmoor National Park seem less terrifying by comparison!

We made it to our hotel in Beer with just enough time for us to throw our bags in our rooms and for some of us to head right back out again (others of us took that time to catch up on their socials and pretend like we don't exist). We were going to be in this area for two low tides, and I didn't want to miss a single second of either of them!

We weren't exactly fossil hunting at a Mary Anning level, ahem, but we did find plenty of pretties to weigh down our luggage and distress airport security:

And here are some huge pieces that we admired on our walk:

We got back to Beer around 7:00 to discover that although the town was HOPPING with vacationers, there was absolutely no food to be found. The pubs were overflowing and were all serving drinks only at that point, no food whatsoever. Matt walked around and checked a couple out while the teenager and I hung out on a bench and did some people-watching. The best thing we saw was a group of about four drunk guys, walking down the middle of the road with their arms around each other, singing "We are the cheeky lads!" When we travel, we're always on the lookout for local color, lol!

And that's how we all ended up back in our hotel, bingeing a reality show about people who vacation in caravan parks and supping on only slightly smushed crisps and chocolate bars from our bag of road snacks. 

• Day 1: We made it to England!
• Day 2: Westminster Abbey, National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, and Six
• Day 3: British Museum and Buckingham Palace
• Day 4: Mudlarks and Southwark
• Day 5: Natural History Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum
• Day 6: Pax Lodge, the Tower of London, and Afternoon Tea
• Day 7: Back and Forth by Boat to Greenwich
• Day 8: We Careen Our Way to Canterbury Cathedral and Dover Beach
• Day 9: Dover, Hastings, and a Holloway
• Day 10, Part 1: All the Giant Rocks
• Day 10, Part 2: Stonehenge, At Last!
• Day 11: To Avalon with King Arthur
• Day 12: Tintagel
• Day 13: In the Footsteps of Mary Anning
• Day 14: Homewards!