Exmouth to Lyme Regis
January 2009
It was the advert Karen saw for a Shearing’s break in Exmouth that made us consider this different approach to walking the next stretch of the South West Coastal Path. We had reached Exmouth last August, so at least we would be staying where we needed to start walking. We have always driven down and stayed in B & B’s or cottages when walking the other stretches we have done but there would be no driving this time and we would be staying in a hotel. (See the previous South West Coastal Path pages for details of our walk in August)
A last minute decision to take a chance on this break in Exmouth turned out to provide three days of extremely enjoyable walking (and very good value for money with excellent accommodation and food) with Shearing’s doing all the work, leaving us to concentrate on our walking.
The weather conditions were much better then expected for this time of year (Early January). Yes it was very cold, but with no rain, blue skies and hard dry ground to walk on conditions were perfect. Our plan was to walk to Lyme Regis and to use the local bus services running along the coast to transport us to and from our start points and destinations and then back to Exmouth each day.
The East Devon and Dorset Coast
From Exmouth until the end of the path you are walking through the Jurassic Coast World
Heritage Site. This stretch has an amazing range of landforms with rocks rich in
fossils recording 250 million years of the Earths ancient history in just 95
miles of coast. This is the finest record through the Triassic, Jurassic and
Cretaceous periods of geological time anywhere in the world and walking along
this coastline is like walking through time.