Way back before I started this blog the wife and I decided one winters morning to take a trip to Lyme Regis which is only a couple of hours drive away. She just wanted the day out, a little shopping, a little sightseeing, but me, my interest was in the fossils that could be found there. I always wanted to try my luck at fossil hunting so we decided to meet half way, We'd go sightseeing for a couple of hours and spend a couple of hours fossil hunting. I took my bricklayer's brick hammer with me as this seemed a good tool to break open those rocks looking for fossils. We arrived and as it was not very good weather, heavy showers on and off, and a bit chilly, we did the shops and sightseeing first. I loved popping in and out of the shops there as many of them sold fossils and the sight of them and the thought of their age was exciting. I did not buy one as I wanted to find my own, its a bit more personal then but we decided to buy one if I found nothing.
With the shops done and bit of sightseeing, a lovely place by the way, we headed down to the beach to look for a fossil. Now keep in mind I have no experience of fossil hunting and armed with my brick hammer we went to a place on the beach popular for fossil hunting. I read about this spot on the internet so thought I'd give it a go. I was a bit bewildered by all the different coloured rocks laying around, light colours, dark colours and all those colours in between. Small rocks and blooming big boulders greeted me. What was amazing was the picture show of some fossils on the big boulders that had been exposed by the weather. Because of the size of the boulders they have been left for all to see, really amazing. I did take a lot of photos but they were stored on an old computer which I had at the time so lost for me to show on here now. Anyway, I remember reading to look out for the soft dark/grey rocks, more chance of a find in those. These rocks were easy to find and I was soon chipping away at them splitting them in half just like a proper fossil hunter. After splitting a few I had a success. I split a rock in half there before me was the imprint of an Ammonite. You would have thought I'd just found a silver hammered coin. I rushed over to my wife who was sitting there looking out to sea and showed her, very nice she said, and then I rushed back to look for more. I could imaging her thinking, "D'OH, the old booger has found one, we'll be here for hours now". It wasn't long before I found another, this one also contained leaf and shell fossils. I was in my element, but poor missus sat there freezing. After a couple of hours the weather did turn more nasty so we decided to call it a day.
I vowed to go back there again which I have not done yet. I'm going to plan another trip back there soon. I will also find out if metal detecting is allowed on the beach there. Then I can do half day fossil hunting and half day detecting.
The fossils pictured are the ones I found that day. I just fished them out the shed to take the photos and holding them again has made me even more determined to get back there. All found in two hours.
Lyme Regis is on the South Coast and is part of what they call the Jurassic Coast that runs for miles.
You can view Lyme Regis fossil hunting Website by clicking
Lyme Regis Fossils and Fossil Collecting
Way back before I started this blog the wife and I decided one winters morning to take a trip to Lyme Regis which is only a couple of hours drive away. She just wanted the day out, a little shopping, a little sightseeing, but me, my interest was in the fossils that could be found there. I always wanted to try my luck at fossil hunting so we decided to meet half way, We'd go sightseeing for a couple of hours and spend a couple of hours fossil hunting. I took my bricklayer's brick hammer with me as this seemed a good tool to break open those rocks looking for fossils. We arrived and as it was not very good weather, heavy showers on and off, and a bit chilly, we did the shops and sightseeing first. I loved popping in and out of the shops there as many of them sold fossils and the sight of them and the thought of their age was exciting. I did not buy one as I wanted to find my own, its a bit more personal then but we decided to buy one if I found nothing.
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