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300L – Dorset’s Great Western Trail 1

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CRF300L Index page
Dorset’s Great Western Trail 2

This summer I find myself relocated in the English countryside far from London and with a usable trail bike, not some fraken-mutt. ‘Dorset’s good for green lanes’ I was told, but it didn’t look like it on an OS map.
As it is, I gave up on English green laning long ago, convincing myself that, certainly the southeast of the country was too congested for trail bikers to mix with ramblers, Nimbies, Just Stop Trailbikers and all the rest. I know well it’s the same limited access story – worse, in fact – with river paddling in England. A ride around adjacent mid-Wales a couple of years ago didn’t raise my hopes much either: beautiful country but more gates than Terminal 5 on a bank holiday getaway.
But we can thank the Trans Europe Trail (TET) initiative, based on the successful BDR project across the fabulous western US – some of which I’ve ridden and which may have been inspired by the legendary TAT. Supported by Adventure Spec among others, knowledgeable local volunteers across Europe have threaded together a network of TET routes which you might struggle to unravel yourself using maps. It’s all laid out on a plate and once figured out, TET releases 1000 of miles of trail biking adventures in the form on a free .gpx tracklog to stick in your digital navigation device. See the TET link above. Users send in updates and you can view this post as one. In a way it’s a bit my like route finding guidebooks. There’s also a Dorset TRF behind a private FB page (not all regional TRF groups are like this). I was happy to send a donation to TET.

A mile of track here and there seems insubstantial, but thread them all together and you’re in business, and the road sections give you a chance to recover. And compared to up north, ancient Dorset dodged the last Ice Cap and is thick with prehistoric trails most of which became today’s footpath, lanes, green or otherwise. It means there are enough footpaths and bridleways to share. I also suspect inland Dorset is helpfully overshadowed by its spectacular Jurassic Coast. Add no conurbations away from Poole/Bournemouth, no National Trails, outstanding medieval cathedrals, or even motorways. Things might be different in Devon and Cornwall.
Of course most of England won’t be like North Africa or SW USA where dirt trails can fill a day, but it’s the best we have and gets you out exploring your nearby countryside on your bike.

GWT southern arm

The Great Western Trail is one of two named TET UK sub-routes – an 800-mile loop reaching down from Wiltshire to Land’s End and back. It’s pitched at more agile trail bikes, not giant Advs.
It has a southern arm of about 60 miles from Poole to west Dorset. Being close to it, I set off from Wareham one afternoon on the 300L to see what I might find. I fully expected to encounter frequent or locked gates, road closures (TROs) and maybe even hostile natives unschooled in the legal status of green lanes. I could not have been more wrong.

First, I needed to fill up. The true (verified) mpg was actually 31kpl or only 88mpg. It’s not looking good for a true 100mpg
I’m trying pricier E5 this time. Some say it’s better all round, including mpg.
But 99 octane? I never knew there was such a thing away from a drag strip. No wonder the planet’s on fire.
A fellow L-head told me there’s a setting on the dash to show volume consumed since last fill; a more useful way of gauging range once you’ve verified your capacity (13.8 litres or on my Acerbis). Actually my bike seems only to display gallons, maybe because it’s set to miles, but my volume is 3 Imp gallons.

Is the bike running smoother and pulling better on E5, or do I just think it is?
Still, it’s nice to be bimbling along deserted backroads and heading into the unknown.
North of Bovingdon the tracklog flicks left up a wooded track.
It feels deeply transgressive to be riding here, and in sleepy Dorset too, not the North York Moors. Can it really be a right of way?
Looking later at a 50K OS map, red dots indicate ‘other routes with public access‘, or ORPA as I will now call them (below), along with the better known BOATs and RUPPs. Never knew that one, but I wouldn’t be surprised if like some of the latter, an OPRA does not necessarily indicate a vehicular rights of way. On the day, how can you tell? You have to hope the TET Linesmen did their homework and the status is unchanged.

A very pleasant 4km trail through the woods leads to the famous village of Tolpuddle.
Home of the Tolpuddle Martyrs, hard-up farm workers who, following a pay cut in 1834, formed a legal workers’ union but got trapped and 7 years transportation for ‘swearing a secret oath’. Again, you’d expect a story like this up north, not in quaint Dorset.
The TET takes a bridge over the A35 and winds its way along farm tracks.
Surely any minute now I’m going to get harangued by some angry bloke in a tractor?
My first gate. Here we go, I thought…
But what can be better than a lonesome track winding its way down a grassy valley, like a scene from the Hobbit.
Down the bottom some blokes reposing by a pond gave me a chummy wave. Later on, some dog walkers did the same. Where are the brandished fists? Have I unknowingly brushed against a psychedelic fern and slipped into a parallel universe?
The post office in Milborne St Andrew after a shave and a short back and sides.
Internet fact: Dorset has more thatched roofs than any other British county, with nearly 10% or around 4 per square mile.
I knew it was out here somewhere. This week there’s been much chatter about the Portland barge. The bloke at the MoT place was not impressed. Portland is to Dorset as Barrow in Furness and Windscale are to the Lake District.
I toodle along deserted country lanes which, but for their asphalt coatings, would all be BOATS, etc.
A semi overgrown shortcut. On an OS map this is marked as a yellow road.
It leads down to Piddletrenthide. All this Piddle and Puddle is Olde Saxon for ‘stream’ or ‘wetland’.
Piddletrenthide high street after I digitally tidy away unsightly cables.
Immaculate, postcard pretty villages like this are two-a-penny in west Dorset.
Interestingly, there is a misleading T-junction sign at the top of this road, but it leads to an unsealed BOAT on the TET which I suppose would flumox a campervan.
I pass through Cerne Abbas, home of the famous Giant.
You’d hope this is a pre-Christian representation or someone is going to be saying a lot of Hail Marys.
It was actually carved in the Saxon era.
A stony trail leads from Up Cerne up Seldon Hill. Along with ruts hidden in long grass, about as technical as it got. Hereabouts the trail peaks at 260m (850 feet) and joins the main GWT loop to Lands End.
I decided to wear my Moto 3 for the first time since my AT debacle, but next time I’ll wear the HJC so I look less Darth. This goodwill can’t last, can it? Obviously there is much to be said for bimbling along and silencers the size of locomotive pistons, but being alone in mid-week must aid tolerance too.
We walked this way one very hot day a few weeks ago. Also very enjoyable.
The rolling hills of west Dorset. It’s great to be out but don’t show this picture to Theresa May.
The L occluded by thistles and grasses. The bike is of course effortless to manage but around here I check the tyres which seem a bit hard. In fact they’re at a lowly 25/20; maybe I’m under-eating. The Rally Raid suspension is barely taxed. I do wonder how the bike will ride such trails with the fat 19er front I have in the pipeline. Nothing I’ll ride today couldn’t have been managed on an AT, GS, T7 or a Chinese 125 scooter, come to that.
My second and last gate of the day which has been a big surprise – or is it just mid-Wales that is gate crazed? Last year on the Glyndwrs Way I counted 70 gates in 15 miles walking. A sheep thing perhaps.
Wessex in mid-summer – not a gigafactory for miles (off to the left in Somerset, actually).
Unusually overgrown. I’m getting splattered with exploding seeds.
I reach a ruin and realise I’ve followed a footpath by mistake. The red tracklog line on my Montana is extremely thin and hard to see. I fiddle with the settings but can only change the colour to green. Later I find my answer:
Who may have lived here and where did they go? Why did they leave the place in such a mess?
Road signs from a Famous Five era. Many of Enid Blyton’s FF adventures were based on Dorset where she vacationed annually for decades.

Crossing the infant Frome near Cattistock and which meets the tide from Poole harbour at Wareham quay (below).

Wraxall Lane – another ORPA. It gets a little muddy; the CRF tiptoes through.

I pop out of the thatch and meadow wonderland at Maiden Newton on the A356 north of Dorchester and where this ornate ancient church catches my eye. It’s now nearly 6pm; 2.5 hours to cover 40 easy, fun miles. I’m hungry so it’s either buy something or ride home. I head back 25 miles. From Maiden it looks like the same distance along the GWT to Lyme Regis on the Devon border. I can’t wait to tick that one off and maybe inch my way west with what remains of the summer.
Who knew in 2023 I’d rediscover trail riding in England after 40 odd years! Sure no track is more than 2 miles to the next road, but old tracks are thick as ascents down here, and it’s not really about what’s under your wheels, it’s where they lead you. And as we know it’s the ‘Blue Highways‘ and dirt roads where adventures and discoveries are easiest to find. More to come.

Dorset’s Great Western Trail 2