This cache is within the army range - but the range walks are open most weekends. You can check to see if the range walks are open on this site.
When no firing is taking place, the gates to the Range Walks are opened as near to 9am on the Saturday morning as possible and remain open until 8am on the Monday morning.
Lulworth Range walks and Tyneham village are open to the public every weekend with the exception of the following:
- 18th to 19th February 2023
- 11th to 12th March 2023
- 17th to 18th June 2023
- 23rd to 24th September 2023
- 7th to 8th October 2023
- 18th to 19th November 2023
Lulworth Range walks are also open every day over the following periods (all dates are inclusive):
- Easter: 1st to 16th April 2023
- Bank Holiday: 29th April to 1st May 2023
- Spring stand-down: 27th May to 4th June 2023
- Summer stand-down: 27th July to 3rd September 2023
- Christmas: 16th December 2023 to 1st January 2024
If we've forgotten to update the opening times, you could always google 'Lulworth Range Walks' and check that the walks are open when you plan your visit.
The fossil forest is famously exposed on a ledge part way down the cliffs just east of Lulworth Cove. It is also seen in several places on Portland and a number of other sites inland from Weymouth.
Throughout the Jurassic period of geological time, Dorset lay under a tropical sea in which a thick accumulation of clays, sandstones and limestones formed. However, near the end of the Jurassic, sea levels dropped and the recently deposited Portland Limestone became exposed to form low-lying land. Soils developed and trees grew but they were short lived as the waters rose again to flood the forest under a salty lagoon. Algae then grew across the floor of the lagoon and around the base of the trees and its sticky surface allowed layer after layer of mud to accumulate. The mud hardened into a thin limestone band with doughnut shaped structures known as burrs or tufas where the trees once stood; the fossil forest.
The fossil forest is best seen about one mile east of Lulworth Cove where it is exposed along a narrow bench in the cliffs. In addition to the algal burrs, the algae have also covered huge fallen logs. Above the forest are the Broken Beds, a mass of jumbled rocks that probably broke up due to the dissolution of salt minerals within them. As with the Fossil Forest, these rocks formed in lagoons that were subject to intense evaporation, allowing salt minerals to accumulate. Later these were dissolved and the rocks collapsed. A clue to this interpretation of the past environment is supplied by casts of salt crystals that can be found in the rubble around the forest. The fossil forest consists of doughnut shaped layers of algae and mud (now limestone) that built up around the base of the ancient trees when they were drowned within a swamp. In places the trees have fallen over and entire logs are coated with limestone.
To claim this cache please post a photo of yourself and/or your GPSr with a 'tufa' in the background and also email us with the answer to this question: approximately how many million years ago did the trees drown within the swamp?
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