Knowledge is Power

Well, maybe not power exactly, but local knowledge is certainly very useful when we get tasked to incidents along the Coastline between Durlston and Dancing Ledge.

As you may know, there isn't a nice tarmacked road along the cliff top, so we have to make a call as how best to reach some of the more popular climbing locations. 

Much of our patch is accessible only by 4x4 vehicles

In the worst case we can park at the lighthouse and walk kit in, but there also routes from Swanage via the Old Dump Lane, via Belle Vue Farm at the top of Benlease Way, via Gully and Verney Farm and via Langton and Spyway Barn.

The SO discusses the route down to the Western Mile Markers before a drive down there

One of our August training sessions saw us reminding ourselves of the various routes and access points and driving those that were passable.  There are some 4x4 routes along the top which we drove as well to refresh the memory and check gate locks etc.

The back roads!

All in all a very useful session, and the follow up session later in the month was to see the same views from the water, and to get a feel for the cliffs from a different angle.  More on that another time.