Walking the Jurassic Coast

The south-eastern coast of Devon is called the Jurassic Coast for good reason. The Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site covers 95 miles of coastline running from here in Exmouth, Devon to Studland, Dorset. It shows evidence of 185 million years of the earth’s history. The coast here showing rocks and fossils from the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. The fame of the film series Jurassic Park (I find the website linked to about the films an intriguing representation of Baudrillard‘s concept of hyperreality - the films now need their own historical interpretation - should you view them in production of chronological order - just as scientists have spent decades determining the chronological order of the rock strata here!) has raised the profile of this area, but its Jurassic history was already well identified before the Hollywood industry took the era to heart.

More details on our walk along the Jurassic Coast later, first an update on our morning.

Breakfast

I woke, as is now normal at 5.30am made my breakfast and began on the epic blog post about our trip to the moor. The amount of detail in a post sometimes takes much longer than a simple description might, but I find it is worth it as I come back to read these blogs in later years. So, while time consuming, getting it right was also satisfying.

Drew got up at 7am and having posted the blog at 8.30am it was time to get showered etc. and dressed ready to head out for Saturday's adventure - a walk along the Jurassic Coast.

Exmouth to Budleigh Salterton

We left the house at 9.15am and made our way down to Manor Park in the middle of Exmouth. Rather than Google Maps, which is great for roads, but less so far paths. It is Drew's Strava that provides the route map for today.

Manor Park has the remains of an old watermill from a nearby village running in place of a fountain.

In a nice touch the path directing us to the starts of the Jurassic Coastal walk is also marked out with dinosaur footprints rather than just arrows. 

Coming out of the park we walked along Exmouth Beach, which we have visited previously on the first day we were here and last Thursday. The Exmouth Parkrun is coming to an end on the beach just as we walk past, reminding me of Lloyd and his family who often fit worldwide Parkruns (as well as their local one) into their holidays. 

The views remained as wonderful as ever.

After walking past the Exmouth Lifeboat Station

We soon reached the start of the Coastal path.

For anyone who wants to see all the photos from our route today you can access them on Flickr. They start here and you click/swipe left to move forward. 

The first highlight on the route was the Orcombe Geoneedle, placed here by Prince Charles in 2002 at the formal opening. It demonstrates the different strata of rocks in the cliff here including some for each of the eras represented.

From the Geoneedle the walk begins to climb toward the Haven Devon Cliffs Holiday Park, this static caravan park is so large that they have streets and caravan numbers.

The Coastal Path stays close to the cliff along this route until you come to Sandy Bay and the Straight Point Firing Range beyond. 

Walking around the Firing range with all its warning signs, the path then starts to climb and climb. 

As the map at the beginning of the post shows there is a very steady, then steep climb from 6 km to 9km along the route and the legs certainly feel this. However, the views are worth it.

The last mile or so was through a wood with dense trees and undergrowth. I began to wish I'd spent more time paying attention to the Radio 4 countryside programmes, like Countryfile and Open Country, that my mother used to listen to, which have people going along various routes identifying bird song, as there were six distinct songs that could be heard in the woods, but my identification skills led me to identify none! The woods also had a proliferation of butterflies - I counted eight different species, but again my identification skills failed me. I should have read this page before I went out. 

We come into Budleigh Salterton after two and a half hours and 10.4 km (6.7 miles)

The effort was quite energising, but I for one was ready for a sit-down and something to eat after the morning stroll. 

Lunch

Budleigh Salterton has a large range of coffee houses and lunch stops. We choose the Gingerbread House.

Which prides itself in providing local produce of the highest quality. Its map of local suppliers takes up one whole wall of the cafe.

For lunch Drew opted for cheddar cheese sandwiches, Drew loved the fresh bread and the strong cheese which provided a good kick to the palette. 

I went for the Moroccan Lamb pasty that was available. With large chunks of lamb, carrot and potato inside the pasty, the Moroccan element from the wonderful sweet and spicy flavour of Ras el hanout cooked through the meat and veg - lovely.

We washed our food down with an americano and a latte.

Budleigh Salterton to Exmouth

In planning today's walk, we had noted online that in addition to the coastal path between the two places, there was also a disused railway line walk. So having come to Budleigh Salterton by the coast we returned to Exmouth via the railway, now a cycle and walking path. Again, Strava provides the directions:

As you see it is both shorter and a lot less steep than this morning's journey. In this case 'a lot less steep' felt like flat compared to this morning. Though we did come across some cyclists who struggled up one of the inclines - mind you they were both in their 80s or 90s.

The walk was pleasant and well shaded, again the air was full of birdsong. 

The route led to the top of Exmouth, a short distance to our house which is above the town centre. We arrived back at 2.05pm. The return journey only taking one and a half hours and being 6.9km (4.6 miles). My step count was 15,800 for the morning and 10,250 for the afternoon. 26,000 steps is well above my daily 10k goal. Drew's step count is always higher than mine - he has smaller strides - his came to 31,331 steps by the end of the day!! [Co-pilot's note: I also, dear readers, included in my numbers the walk down to the church, a little distance away, to meet Mr B. My legs aren't that freakishly small.]

Back in the house

We got back to the house and consumed plenty of fluid. I wrote the blog post about the previous night's dinner. Then I copied the photos from the camara and began the process of labelling them for Flickr - I didn't finish before it was time for me to prepare for Mass, so they didn't get posted until later.

I know how much I've benefitted from walking since I retired, my initial 4 miles (since lockdown now 5 miles) six days a week have made me lighter, fitter and healthier. It also means this kind of extra effort takes far less out of me than the days when I was 20+ stone and would grumble about walking short distances up the hill of Treforest Campus. It seems odd to be able to go far greater distances now I am older than I would have dreamed of in my 40s, but I'm very grateful for it.