Stage 68 OS Map of the walk Stage 70
SIDMOUTH to BRANSCOMBE MOUTH Stage 69 (10th September 2011)
We set off at 9.45 from Sidmouth after catching the #157 bus from Exmouth. The weather was very grey, thick cloud over the cliff tops but the forecast suggested clearing skies later.
The path diverts inland as it rises out of Sidmouth behind houses whose gardens have already started to fall into the sea. We came across a man collecting very small sloes, to steep in gin? At the top of the cliff we walked through a field of cows with swallows swooping round our feet, coming round and round again, perhaps snatching up the flies that our footsteps sent up.
On this stage the red sea stacks give way slowly to reddish soil with flints then to a chalk-white rock outcrop and finally glimpses of the solid chalk of Beer Head.
An unusual daymark in the slope of a hill above the cliff is made of a deep flint bed through which no plants grow. Finally the clouds began to break up. As it draws level with Branscombe village inland the SWCP enters woodland for a stretch. Emerging again on the cliff edge the path drops rapidly down to Branscombe Mouth.
We walked up the path from the Coastguard Cottages to Branscombe Village, to the bus stop opposite the Village Hall. The #899 bus came exactly on time and the driver squeezed the bus with millimetres to spare through the lanes back to Sidmouth. Another punctual #157 bus got us back to Exmouth on time.
Total distance on path 6.5 miles, 10.4km total distance 7.5 miles 12.0km, ascent 570m.
The South West Coast Path is the longest of the official UK National Trails, running from Minehead in Somerset round the English south west peninsula coast to Poole in Dorset. The total length is just over 1000 kilometres or, more precisely, 630 miles. Only very dedicated walkers could contemplate completing the whole walk in one go, although plenty of people have done just this. Received opinion is that it would take around 6 weeks, even for the most dedicated.
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Sidmouth fishing boat
Descent into Branscombe