West Dorset is a lovely area for rambling and giving the hounds a good run. Quite unspoilt with lots of lovely valleys, woods and villages with Hardyesqe names like Piddletrenthide, Plush, Toller Porcorum and Ryme Intrinseca. Cerne Abbas is a gem of a village that time has slipped by. It lies 10 miles south of Yeovil reached by turning off the A37 to Dorchester road. Its main claim to fame is the Rude Giant, recently repainted to reveal all its glory (is that the word I'm looking for?)

Meet 10.30 by the church (at east end of main street), parking nearby (there's also a clean loo here). The map ref is ST665013 (tap this into the OS site: ), or use Explorer map 117 (Cerne Abbas and Bere Regis).

Map below (or click here to enlarge):

Our route is past the Elizabethan houses shown right then by the millstream to the Giant's View (shown right). Then amble through fields gently up to woods that in Spring are full of bluebells, but now – as Matilda swiftly found out – full of pheasants. (Why can't the silly things fly around and rest in trees, preferably tall ones, like the rest of their type?).

We then meet the Wessex Ridgway with views all round and we do a mile dead flat. Leaving the ridge we gently drop down to the Cerne valley and walk to Up Cerne, which though down is I suppose up compared to its bigger brethren.

Now here's a mystery. Though only a tiny hamlet of flint and thatched cottages it has a stunning manor house (see right) and neighbouring church, but with more Private notices than you can shake a stick at (which I did). Feeling in need of some moral uplift I wandered up the drive to examine the church, to be told in emphatic tones "this is private". Muttering something about "my ancestors could be buried there" and toying with setting the hounds on him, I ambled back to the road. There I quizzed a passer-by and was told that "I've never been in the church and I live here." Enjoying a cream tea later in Cerne Abbas (you can too), the owner told me that it was owned by an Austrian diplomat. Ah . . . So chaps are we going to let a foreigner take over our heritage? How about The Pack invading the grounds, by accident of course? Well I feel better for that.

Pressing on we walk over the valley and gently amble up to the ridge and then turn south along to Giant's Hill where we can run or even roll down the hillside back to a cream tea and our motors.

Six miles, say 3½ hours, in some of the finest countryside the UK can offer.

Hope to see you there.

Descending Giants Hill