Wednesday, June 8
Branscombe to Lyme Regis, 14.4 Miles
This was walk of two halves: we spent the morning cliff walking from Branscombe through the village of Beer and on to the town of Seaton; we spent the afternoon in a remarkable nature preserve, walking through some of the densest vegetation we have seen in the UK.
We knew we had a longish day ahead of us, so we were walking down toward the beach at Branscombe Mouth shortly after 8. Although it was a bit too early to sample its wares, there is a nice looking pub right at the beach, the Sea Shanty Beach Cafe.
That’s our first cliff on the left above the beach!
Gary, ever the technologist, was fascinated by some of the instruments at seaside; he was pretty sure that some of these were surf cams, accessible through apps to local surfers.
We were soon climbing onto the lower reaches of Hooken Cliffs with fine views back to Branscombe Mouth.
The next couple of miles were a bit of a preview of the afternoon’s walk. Rather than climbing onto the clifftops, the path wound along on a landslip below the cliffs but well above the sea. Huge parts of the cliffs had collapsed, making a bench of very fertile soil that housed rich and varied vegetation.
It was a nice change of pace to walk between cliff and sea at a certain height!
The path eventually rose up to the clifftop, a broad and fertile series of fields as we rounded Beer Head and turned north for the village of Beer. Gary walked part of this section with a walker we had leapfrogged with ever since Sidmouth. He was a retired helicopter pilot named Ross who had retired to this coast. His wife wasn’t a walker, so he had set off alone, hoping to reach the end of the path at Poole…wild camping all the way.
Beer is a rather picturesque little place, and you can hardly blame the local publicans for taking advantage of the name.
Beer is separated from the town of Seaton by the steep slopes of Sea Hill; once over the top, the path leads you directly onto the large beach that stretches the length of Seatown. Here we crossed paths with another walker we had encountered several times. Unlike most of the long distance walkers, who walked point to point, he established a base in one town or another, then walked in both directions, returning by bus or taxi. He shared some good advice about the path to come.
After a brief break for some refreshment in Seaton, we pressed on. The second half of the walk started rather inauspiciously, with a very steep climb up a road onto Haven Cliff. At the top we found yet another golf course. But a mile or so of flat walking through fields brought us to the first warning sign of the walk. Visitors were warned that the walk through the Axmouth-Lyme Regis Undercliff National Nature Preserve was “arduous,” that there was no way off the path for the next five miles, and that “abandon all hope, all ye who enter here.” Well, OK, that last wasn’t on the sign.
Here is the official entrance to the reserve.
The walking in the reserve is arduous not because it involves long steep ascents or descents, but because the path swings wildly up and down over often treacherous footing; the path is rocky and rutted and very wet for long stretches, since the sun can’t really penetrate the dense canopy. The reserve is a huge landslip: the entire cliff collapsed in 1839, creating a vast shelf of rich soil. The change in landscape was so dramatic that Queen Victoria came to have a look.
The shady, humid conditions offered an ideal environment for wildly explosive plant life.
This sign, marking the beginning of a remarkable part of the landslip known as Goat Island, includes a good explanation for this little ecosystem.
Our own subjective survey of other long distance walkers suggests that opinion is divided on this segment of the path. We rather liked it; the gardeners were thrilled with some of the flora, which includes a couple of varieties of rare orchids. Others miss the sea views, which are few and far between. Here is a rare exception. In the distance you can see the next day’s walk, including the Golden Cap, the highest point on England’s south coast.
But as you can see, the hardy walkers remained cheerful as they clung to this bucking bronco of a path.
The end of the preserve dumped us out onto a series of pleasant country lanes that led into Lyme Regis, a charming Regency resort town. This was the hardest stage of the walk for me; I was knackered, and the others were weary!
Gary had booked later than we had, and they were at a lovely hotel, the Alexandra. When I had booked, everything looked very expensive, and I had taken one of the few choices above a pub…we had had very good luck with this strategy. I should have taken the title of our lodgings literally. Room at the Inn was just that: one room above a pub. The room was actually spacious and scrupulously clean. But it was a bit different, with dark grey walls and somewhat challenging plumbing!
But we met Cindy and Gary for another really good meal at Tom’s Restaurant on the seafront. Sue kept up her all fish walk, but Gary and I indulged in some delicious lamb. After a long walk and a good meal, we slept like babies.