Day 11: Sidmouth to Beer
This day had pretty strenuous walking as creeks cut into plateaus; we climbed up and then down 5 tall hills, 2000 ft. of ascent total. A lot of it was steep, so the trail builders made steps, but they were often mean 14″ steps, or tiny 5″ steps, sometimes they were long enough for two footsteps each, and sometimes they were narrower than our feet. It slowed us down and hurt the knees and ankles. Over the course of the day the sun came out and hid, the wind blew and stopped, the rain sprinkled and stopped; so we had lots of adjustment to clothes. But the scenery was fantastic, and we saw cows, sheep, and even pigs.
As the day progressed, the cliffs changed from the reds of the Jurassic stone we’d been walking with for two days, to yellows and then whites like the Cliffs of Dover.
One of the hills took us all the way down to Weston Beach, at Weston Mouth (I assume it’s on the River Weston; they’re pretty redundant with the naming ;), which was pebbled and lovely. We were only on the beach for about 30 feet before the trail took us back up the other side. Here’s the trickle of the Weston River:
It was a long walk with a LOT of views.