The Exe to Budleigh Salterton

Walked by Sally and Richard, Sunday 2nd December 2012

About 10.5 miles of walking, 6 miles on South West Coast Path.

Click here for all our photos from this walk.

We pottered around Lympstone for a while, at one point walking down a pretty alleyway with a 'public footpath' sign. This turned out to just lead down to the estuary, where we spent some time photographing and fussing a very friendly cat. Then we followed the road through the village, passed underneath the railway line and took the Exe Estuary Trail towards Exmouth.

As we approached Exmouth we could have left the cycleway and taken a footpath on the other side of the railway - we should perhaps have done this, but we didn't. However, after passing Exmouth Station we walked out towards the estuary, round a park. This was definitely worth doing, though we were driven back to the road by an inlet. We cut through to the sea front, close to where the Starcross Ferry would have come ashore, had it been running - so we were back on the route of the South West Coast Path. There is a little marina here and some shops (we bought chocolate!) and Dawlish Warren, across the estuary, seems very close.

We walked along the length of Exmouth's Esplanade, stopping for lunch at one of a number of cafes which were open (so the emergency chocolate rations were not strictly necessary). Exmouth calls itself the 'Gateway to the Jurassic Coast' and at the eastern end of the Esplanade there were lots of information boards (though note that the rocks here are not actually Jurassic...). We climbed up onto the clifftop and followed the path to Rodney Point and then Orcombe Point, where sits the Geoneedle, a tall pyramid inlaid with rocks from along the Jurassic Coast, marking its inauguration as a World Heritage Site.

We continued along the coast path with views ahead of us to Straight Point (a Rifle Range) and the Devon Cliffs Holiday Park. Perhaps the least said the better. The path meandered through the holiday park for what felt like a very long time, at one stage following a diversion where building work was in progress.

Eventually we left the rifle range and the holiday park behind us and climbed. It was drizzling, but not so much that we felt we had to put on our overtrousers, and the views ahead to the red cliffs and Budleigh Salterton were lovely.

We descended to Budleigh Salterton, past boats pulled up on its shingle beech. We had given our estimated time of arrival as 4pm and were very early, so stopped for a while at the most conveniently placed 'Jubilee Shelter'. Here we learnt that the 'Salterton' in the town's name comes from salt workings in the Otter Estuary, and that the pebbles on the beach, which have come out of the nearby cliffs, are very distinctive and can be recognised when they turn up e.g. on Chesil beach and on the Isle of Wight.