Ammonite hunters
Marcel, Charlotte and I left Phyllis and the wee ones on the sandy beach in Lyme Regis and walked over to the Jurassic cliffs on Manmouth Beach.
We had heard it was a good place to find ammonites, so I was hoping to find an incomplete chunk or two.
What I didn’t expect was to find the beach littered with huge, complete ammonite shells like the one on the photo!
On the other hand, we didn’t find any small ones we could take home. Whether that was because they had already been removed by other fossil hunters, or whether only the big ones fossilise well, I don’t know.
What I do know is that we met several other people with big hammers that they used to split the stones with. We had to restrict ourselves to chucking the stones onto the hard ground, which is not quite as efficient.
So next time, we’ll bring hammers, chisels and a sturdy rucksack!