The Wessex Ridgeway runs across Dorset beginning (or ending) at Lyme Regis on the coast. It connects with the route known simply as The Ridgeway at West Kennet in Wiltshire to Ivinghoe Beacon in Buckinghamshire. There it becomes the Icknield Way stretching to the north Norfolk coast. These trails date back to prehistoric times and the whole route can still be walked from one side of the country to the other.
 The Wessex Ridgeway passes through Kingcombe; on the second day of my visit I used it to head in an easterly direction passing through the villages of Cattistock and Sydling St Nicholas and back again. On the third day I hiked westward ho to the equally picturesque village of Powerstock. Here I took to the lanes to get to Bridport, then caught a bus along the coast towards Weymouth. I'd packed my tent in my rucksack and I pitched for one night on a campsite in Punknowle, a mile or so from the sea.
 NB I have written before in this diary about one of my favourite novels: Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household, published in 1939. [See also entry dated 7th. April 2018]
 The unnamed protagonist is on the run from enemy agents after a failed attempt to assassinate an unnamed dictator. He goes to ground in the Dorset countryside in an attempt to shake them off. At one point he holes up in the hills above Sydling St Nicholas then makes a dash cross country skirting Cattistock and Powerstock.
 Rogue Male is a work of fiction but the author was clearly very familiar with the terrain.