Studland's Sand and Heath SZ033835

About trip

From the car park go past the visitor centre to thhe sea. Turn left and walk up the beach for about 2 miles. Marram-covered dunes hide the edge of the heath on your left, but you have views to Tennyson Down on the Isle of Wight, and the golden cliffs of Bournemouth curve away ahead. Continue round the tip of the sand bar into Shell Bay. Poole opens out ahead. There are good views of the nature reserve Brownsea Island. Turn inland at South Haven Point, joining the road by the phone box. Pass the boatyard and toll booth, then bear right at a gate on to a bridleway leading down to some houseboats. Turn left along the inner shore of Poole Harbour and past Bramble Bush Bay. Choose any of the tracks up to the road. Cross and then follow the verge until the end of some woods on your left, when you can pick up the broad muddy track on the heath. After 0.5 mile this bends left. Where the track bends sharply right to meet the road, stay ahead on the footpath for another 200m. Cross the road by a bus stop and head down the track, indicated by a fingerpost. Go past the marshy end of Studland Heath and up to a junction by Greenlands Farm. Bear left and , just around the next corner, turn left through a gate on to the heath. Go straight along an old hedge-line, pass a barn on the left, and reach a fingerpost. Turn left across the heath (not shown on the fingerpost), aiming for the distant lump of the Agglestone. Go through a gate by another fingerpost and continue along the muddy track over the top, passing the Agglestone away to your right. Go down into some woods, turn right over a footbridge and pass through a gate into a lane. Pass several houses then, where blue markers indicate a public bridleway, turn left into a field. Head diagonally right into a green lane and go through a gate at the bottom. Turn left along the verge, pass the Knoll House Hotel and turn right at the signpost to return to the car park.