Thomas Hardy's Wessex: Lulworth Cove

Finally, on my third trip to Thomas Hardy's Wessex, I got to see Lulworth Cove. 

After setting our tents up on a campsite at Wool, we managed to catch the last bus (at teatime) to Lulworth Cove.  We were obviously not disappointed by what we found there:

Lulworth Cove was important to visit for me, because of its Thomas Hardy significance:  being the place where Sergeant Troy disappears and is feared to have drowned in 'Far from the Madding Crowd'; and where Cytherea and Owen Graye visit on a paddle steamer trip from Budmouth (Weymouth) in 'Desperate Remedies'.

In 'The Hardy Way', Margaret Marande (2015: 36) reveals that Hardy and his sister Mary visited Lulworth Cove on a paddle steamer from Weymouth in 1868 and that such excursions continued until 1955.

It's a real pity that the Weymouth-Lulworth Cove paddle steamer excursions stopped, but I can almost imagine them in the shot below:

We got our best views of Lulworth Cove during the long, steep ascent towards Durdle Door:

Margaret Marande (2015: 36) also reveals that Lulworth Cove is the setting for one of Hardy's best short stories, 'The Distracted Preacher' in 'Wessex Tales', as it is a "landing point for contraband where Lizzy Newberry and the reluctant young Methodist minister, Stockdale help the smugglers land tubs of brandy".