Todays journey took me down to nearby Branscombe, a pretty village in a narrow glacial valley leading to the sea, traversing more of those damned narrow lanes ! So small in fact that cottages built alongside these lanes require you to look out your window before opening your front door for fear that you'll either step straight in front of a car or have one drive through your hallway and out through your kitchen !
Branscombe has a unique feel to it, the village because of the valley shape feeds itself gradually down to the sea with the towns church strangely the furtherest away from the sea apparently as a result of the regular plundering of this area by Erik and his roaming vikings !
How appropriate then when in 2007 the 62,000 ton freighter Napoli came to grief in these waters causing many of its 2,400 containers to float to shore. Treasure hunters (thieves) came from all over the UK to grab what they could with TV footage at the time showing some walking away with brand new Mercedes Motorcycles !
This area is also part of the UNESCO listed Jurassic coast region, an area of coastline whose rocks have revealed geological secrets going back millions of years to the Dinosaurs and when the land changed from desert , to swamp to sea and back to land!
My 10km walk started with a stiff climb from the seafront to the towering headland with great views of ocean and beaches below if you can call rock covered sand such !
The walk eventually took me down into the tiny sea front village of Beer which is obviously packed during the warmer tourist season judging by the hundreds of empty deck chairs placed on the beach sea front.
Beer was a delightful place to just simply watch the world go by sitting on one of the many donated benches.
The return journey was a bit more challenging taking a precipitous path down the cliff face back to the Branscombe river mouth but not nearly as scary as the return journey to Honiton down those Hamster sized lanes !
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