Adventure to Junction Rock
My ultimate plan is to risk life and limb to explore an otherwise inaccessible part of my glorious Dorset coast, running the gauntlet of the tides to reach ‘Junction Rock’, a prehistoric outcrop (or layer) of ancient cliff on the foreshore beneath Thorncombe Beacon.
I’d better qualify that by saying that this will be my second attempt to reach the area, a location that has become an, almost, mythical destination for me and one that currently exists only in my imagination.
Why? Because, although the area can be glimpsed from the clifftops 500ft above my usual and favourite walking / hiking spot of Thorncombe Beacon itself, the reality is that the location is a treacherous and extremely dangerous one to navigate and explore.
From Eype beach directly at the base of Thorncombe Beacon, I will have to walk the several hundred yards along the shore until I reach the first finger of rocks jutting out at the Western end.
From there, walking parallel with a receding tide, I will … No, I’d better use the word ‘would’ walk around that headland, negotiate rocks and boulders and patches of quicksand and unstable coastal and then continue around a further headland before passing a third to arrive at Junction Rock itself.
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