35mm: Takumar Trek Pt12

Last October saw me walking the last part of this trek, and you can re-cap that here if you wish! Since then, we’ve had winter and the weather has been dull damp and wet. Parts of this track can be quite muddy and not much fun to walk, so I haven’t attempted more. Just recently, we’ve had a few reasonable days, so I’ve been back on it!

If you haven’t been reading this from the start, I’m walking the Castleman Trail, a disused railway line, turned into footpath, mostly in Dorset, UK. I’ve been photographing with my Pentax Spotmatic, taking with me my 50mm and 35mm Takumar lenses, (hence Takumar Trek). It’s been loaded with bulk loaded, FP4 Plus movie film, that went out of date in 1998! In part 11, I emerged from the track onto the main road, turned right, and diverted into Wimborne to photograph where the original station once stood. Had I have turned left instead of right, I would have been on the trail and yards away from the Willett Arms (above) where I started this part of the walk.

The track picks up pretty much from the far end of the pub car park. I’ve noticed that people painting faces on the end of trimmed back fallen trees seems to have become a “thing”, I’ve seen it elsewhere! The track here is obviously old track bed. It’s straight and the signs are there if you look for them. Before too long there is a bridge that allows the A349 to pass overhead. I’ve driven over it many 10’s if not 100’s of times and wondered what lies below – now I know.

A large chunk of this section is rather straight obvious walking, sometimes that’s quite nice. It allows for walking, thinking, chilling without the need to be figuring out where to turn next. Below is a good example.

A little further along is, apart from the earlier bridge, the only standing remnant of the railway that I found. A small workers hut. I wonder if there was a junction or crossing here?

Although I always take the two lenses with me, this section I never changed from the 35mm. The film was developed in Ilford’s Ilfosol 3. In my developer tests, it seems to be the developer that gave me the results I liked the best from FP4 – so I’m sticking with it.

Before too long the track is has turned into an embankment rather than cutting, and on one side is a view looking down into Delph Woods, a local nature reserve, and on the other, a view over part of Broadstone Golf Course.

Shortly after this, the track takes a sharp right turn off the route of the train as there is now housing. A large footbridge takes the walker over the road that leads to the Golf Club’s car park and club house, turns left, and after a 100 yards or so, is back on track.

The path now runs by the side of the un-attractive sports and leisure centre. It’s tennis courts, and car park on what would once have been the track bed.

The leisure centre above, now sits where the original station would have been pretty much. Nothing of that survives, but the road on which it stands is still known as Station Approach. Across the road the Station Hotel still stands, although now re-named as the “The Goods Yard” pub.

This would have been the ideal place to stop and have a drink except I’d already done that! Logistics being what they are mean that in reality, what I actually did was park the car here, walk back to the Willet Arms, in Wimborne, had a drink, and turned around and walked back as described above. I’ve done this on more than one section. It does mean that I’ve walked much further than the length of the trail. It’s also surprising what one misses walking in one direction and sees walking back in the other! As I was driving, I waited till I got back home and had a glass of red!