Exmouth to Otterton 17.5km
Ascension 230m  Accumulated ascension 1,614m

At breakfast our host Ian played some background music and I’m sure he tailors the playlist for his guests. We had an early breakfast this morning and were on our own in the dining room. We had a sound track including Led Zeppelin, Procul Harem, The Moody Blues, White Horse and Ray Charles singing Hit the Road Jack. I hope Ian wasn’t trying to give us a message. In the rooms he had the largest selection of herbal teas I think I have seen. At breakfast there were fifteen different spreads for your toast.

Exmouth has a sandy beach 2 miles long, the longest in Devon and we had to walk the length of it on the promenade as we left town. There was then a climb up to Orcombe Point. Here there is a strange Geoneedle obelisk that marks the beginning of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site that stretches for 155kms and we will walk every inch of it. This coast was designated England’s first UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2001 due to its incredible and very visible geology. As we walk from west to east the rocks we walk on get younger, starting with the red rocks of the Triassic Period (250 million years old), then the Jurassic Period (from 200 million years old) and finally the Cretaceous Period (145 to 65 million years old). It is a bit more complicated than that but for we non-geologists  this is good enough.

From the obelisk we climbed quite steeply along the edge of a corn field (the corn harvested some time ago I would say) and for ages went past the largest holiday park we have ever seen. It was a small city in its own right. It had a large cafe where you could only buy something if you had downloaded their app. They even had their own very nice little beach. As we passed Straight Point there was the sporadic pop, popping of gun fire as we passed the military rifle range. Some more climbing and two hours after starting out we had reached West Down Beacon and it was down hill all the way to Budleigh Salterton and the end of climbing for the day.

Budleigh Salterton is a small seaside town at the mouth of the Otter River. It was originally called Ottermouth but the name was changed to Salterton to reflect the town’s primary industry of salt panning. It has a very pebbly beach –  no sand. The pebbles are known as Lower Triassic Pebbles, 400 million years old. For thousands of years they have been spilling out of the cliffs as sea and time take their toll. The pebbles are oval shaped and extremely hard being made of hard quartz.

The Otter river has no bridge or ferry at its mouth as it is a protected nature estuary reserve. You have to walk one and a half kilometres inland to the nearest road bridge and walk back down the other side of the river to the coast  Absolute Escapes had not been able to get us suitable accommodation on the coast so we had to walk a further three and a half kilometres inland from this road bridge to the delightful little Devon village of Otterton.

We got a bit confused about otters and beavers today.  At the museum in Budleigh Salterton there is a log, apparently gnawed by a beaver, that washed up on the banks of the Otter River. This was a mystery as there were no beavers in the river at the time. The most plausible explanation is that on a nearby private estate, on a tributary of the Otter, they did have beavers and the log must have washed down from there. So what’s with beavers and otters. Although they look similar and share similar habitats they are quite separate animals. It turns out the Otter River has nothing to do with otters the mammals. Otter is an ancient English word for water. On the walk along the river we saw two signs saying that beavers are living and breeding in this section of the Otter River. I think we are off our heads on otters and beavers.

Otterton has an old mill, still operating, that is also now a museum, cafe and restaurants, art gallery, gift shop and farm shop. We spent a good hour there looking around and bought some apples, local Devon cheese and spelt wholegrain flour bread for our lunch tomorrow.

We had a good walk today. We were rested and our heads were in the right space. All the hill climbing was done early in the day and when it got up to 26° we were  mostly in shade alongside the delightful river. Tonight we are in the charming Kings Arms Hotel and had good old traditional steak pie, mash and gravy for dinner.