With Dutch visitors over the Christmas period we wanted to take them to somewhere different from home. Previously visitors have enjoyed going to the Isle of Purbeck where the cliff scenery is quite different from the dunes and beaches of the Netherlands.

One place we have never been to as a family is Kimmeridge. Our eldest son is a surfer and said that the reefs, cliffs and fossils there were very interesting. On arriving there on Christmas Eve we were struck by the darkness of the cliffs in contrast to the limestone and chalk of nearby West Lulworth or Swanage. This is shown very well on the University of Southampton website.

The dark shales (some looked more like slates) of the cliffs dominate the cliffs however there are very distinct layers of yellow sandstone. On some parts of the beach there shales go out as flat plates into the sea.

The shale and that sandstone makes for very colourful contrasts.

Although the cliffs are famous for their oil shales, which occasionally burn, an obvious feature of many rocks was the presence of iron ore. A lot of rocks looked really rusty.

There were obviously a lot of fossils. Ammonites - or rather fractions of them were very common - and quite a few rocks showed imprints of shellfish.

Larger ammonites were quite visible in various states of erosion in both shale and sandstone rocks.

My eldest son and his cousin found some small but well preserved ammonites in shale in rocks below the cliff.

Another cousin found parts of an ammonite in a rusty rock.

While neither good geologists nor expert fossil-hunters this was a very interesting beach!