After breakfast we drove to Badbuy Rings for a walk around the Kingston Lacy Estate. We followed the route given in the Pathfinder guide for Dorset. It was hot even at 9.30am and it got hotter and stickier as the morning wore on.
The Bridleway has been diverted around The Oaks but it's easy enough to get back on the route. After The Oaks the walk is along long, straight gravel or tarmac lanes with high hedges. But every now and then there are sweeping views of the Dorset countryside to relieve the monotony. The highlight for us in this section of the walk was seeing a deer in a field of linseed as we followed the Stour Valley Way. After crossing the Blandford Road the walking was on grass tracks along the side of fields. Here there were hundreds of butterlies in the hedgerows and along side the field margins. Most numerous were Marbled Whites. I also captured a Ringlet on camera. At times it appeared as though the hedges themselves were moving!
The walk ended by passing through Badbury Rings themselves. We didn't see any orchids as the National Trust are grazing sheep on the rings to control weeds (14 species of orchids have been recorded here). The sheep seemed more interested in keeping cool than working.
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