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You are here: Home > South West Coast Path Holidays > Plymouth to Brixham Plymouth to Brixham |
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Grade: Starts Easy then strenuous - Average Walking Time 6 hours not including breaks.
River Erme Crossing - no ferry, wade the river or taxi/walk round the estuary
A Woodland ramble leads onto higher grassy slopes today as the cliffs start to get higher and higher and the panorama’s better and better. Stonechats, Dartford Warblers and cirl buntings share the skies with Holly Blues and Marbled White butterflies Only a day out of Plymouth and you are now entering some of the most remote walking on the whole of the South Devon coast. With little habitation it has also escaped the holiday parks and the hordes of tourists. Three rivers mark this stretch of the walk and all need careful planning to overcome, the Yealm, the Erme and the Avon.
To Cross the Yealm ferry this morning nothing much has changed in a century wave and shout “ferry” at the top of your voice to be taken over the river basin. A board shows the former ferry rates - Ferriage for every persons on weekdays 1d the like on Sundays 2d and for every pony and ass 3d ! Climbing from the wooded river banks you soon join the looping nine mile carriage drive an impressive feat of engineering constructed in the late 19C by unemployed fisherman working for the local landowner Lord Revelstoke of Membland Hall . His grand vision a carriageway to impress his visitors that circled his substantial lands, his legacy has left us with a fine and comfortable high level walkway. On ancient bluebell carpeted oak woods alive with woodpeckers and tree creepers you can still see “deflecting” walls built on the sharp and exposed corners to prevent any runaway carriages 
heading for the sea. As you reach the cliffs look out on a clear day for a distant Eddystone lighthouse 14 miles offshore closer in Great Black Crested Gulls, ravens, Kestrels, Buzzards and even Peregrine Falcons swoop around the rocky headlands.
Warren Cottage (Lord Revelstoke's Rabbit Farm) sits above Warren beach a lookout spot for dolphins, whales and seals, spot the Sheep creep holes in the walls here to allow sheep but not cattle to pass to the next field. At bleak Gunrow you arrive at the signal station built as part of the chain of Napoleonic defences and inland a short diversion is worthwhile to see the atmospheric ruins of the abandoned Church of St Peter the Poor Fisherman first recorded in 1225. Partly restored in the 60’s it’s iconic with its roofless nave and partly restored tower a dramatic sight along with its pirate and cholera victim gravestones. Past the Coastal Tor at St Anchorites Rock you now reach the Erme River, there is no ferry here but the river can be waded by the adventurous during a short window around 
low tide - other options involve an inland walk / transfer round the hidden valley. Its golden sands, ancient woods and isolation quite simply described as the least spoilt river mouth in England. Redshank, dunlin, oystercatcher, curlew and turnstones are present and if you are lucky egret,hoopoe and even golden oriole may be spotted in the wilderness.
Once over this hurdle Aymer cove is a highlight in the rollercoaster flanked by sheer and impressive cliff walls a spot infamous in the past for smuggling with bounty brought up the path by Donkeys to the local village inn. Watch Brown trout in the steam here, herons, kingfishers, dancing butterflies and dragonflies. Looming offshore ahead is the end of today’s trek at Burgh Island. Thrusting out of the sandy causeway its famed for its 1929 art deco hotel and association with Agatha Christie - this was the setting for Evil under the Sun and her novel “And then there were none”. The island houses The Pilchard inn over 650 years old and haunted by the ghost of the smuggler Tom Croker shot dead here by the Customs Men. It’s well worth exploring the island, climb to the ruined Heur (Pilchard spotters) hut which is built at the highest point of the island on the site of an old medieval chapel. If the tide is out you can walk over the sands, if not the most bizarre form of transport is needed on H G Wells type upper deck sea tractors which travel through the seawater giving you a most unusual taxi service to the pub 6 foot above the waves. Back on the mainland the village of Bigbury sits on an excellent beach where kite surfers amass on a windy day. This or nearby Bantham over the Avon river is your overnight stop.
Click Here to read about overnight stops in Bigbury on Sea and Bantham
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Section 3 Bigbury to Salcombe 14 miles – Std Route
Grade: Moderate 6 miles, Strenuous 8 miles - Average Walking Time 6.5 hours not including breaks.
Ferry Crossing at Bigbury (River Avon) or the inland Avon Estuary Walk
Today’s route gradually tests you more and more as short climbs and drops to Inner Cove turn into some challenging ascents en route to Bolt Tail and from here to Bolt Head one of Devon’s finest high cliff walks. A scramble round the rocky headland at Starehole Bay is required before a drop into the woods and idyllic estuary of Salcombe.
The start of today’s walk is famous for its breadth of fauna, carpets of wild white clover, sea thrift and marguerite daisies. This is also Adder territory and you may well be lucky enough to see one along the trail. A short run of sandy bays draws you to Thurlestone with its pink thatched dwellings (Thurlestone meaning holed stone a huge one can be seen offshore) Fine beaches here have the two vital Devon ingredients golden sands and teeming rock pools below the famous Rock Archway immortalised by Turner in his painting.
An impressive 70m Long wooden footbridge brings you over a marshland Nature Reserve on route to Hope Cove climbing Beacon Point en route, its claim being the point the Spanish Armada was first spotted from the land. Descend to Hope Cove with its square of thatched white cottages set below the hillside and the old lifeboat house and slipway which were stood down at the end of the 19C.
The afternoon section through Bolt Tail to Bolt Head as the names suggest is an exhilarating journey in itself and starts with a steep ascent to the wild Bolt Tail Headland. Breathtaking views reveal themselves back to Burgh Island, Plymouth, inland to brooding Dartmoor and even into Cornwall and the Dodman a long 8 days walk behind you. The location of an Iron Age Cliff fort, you can still make out the ramparts across the narrow section of headland.The next cove the Ramillies is named simply after the boat which gave one of the most tragic events along the coast path with over 700 troops drowned off here in 1760 during a fearful gale. Climb and climb 440ft on up Bolberry Down and onto the top of the cliffs a stunning section with kestrels, sparrow hawks and peregrine Falcons spotted from the heather, gorse and grasslands. Twisted spiky outcrops and precipitous cliff sides start to envelop the walker near Bolt head where a second world war accommodation shelter and lookout point is built amongst rocks, now only home to the malevolent ravens.
You now circumnavigate Starehole Bay on a rocky scramble to reach the spine of crags at Sharp Tor that thrust out towards the ocean the path now ending the day along the Earl of Devon’s Courtenay Walk hewn out of the rocks to give access to Bolt Head from Salcombe and round a corner suddenly a new world opens up in the mellow rounded creeks, sands and wooded hillsides of a very inviting looking Salcombe. Enter through oak, chestnut and pine woods as you approach the yachts and bobbing boats of this placid harbour pausing to look over at the squat ruined tower of Henry 8th’s Salcombe Castle the last Royalist outpost in Devon.
Click Here to read about overnight stops in Salcombe
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Section 4 Salcombe to Torcross 13 miles – Std Route
Grade: Strenuous 13 miles - Average Walking Time 6.5 hours not including breaks.
Ferry Crossing at Salcombe (Salcombe Harbour)
After yet another ferry ride the walk today quickly thrusts you back into the rocky South Devon Coastline with a switchback of ascents and descents along what we call the “swine trail” passing Devon’s southernmost point at Prawle and the lighthouse out at exposed Start Point. After looking down on the tragic lost village of Hallsands your day ends with the promise of something very different to come as you arrive in Torcross on the shingle banks ready to “walk the line”
From the ferry landing in East Portlemouth you move out of the overnight tranquillity of Salcombe and back into harsh rocky path caught between dramatic drops to the ocean on one side and jagged crags and pinnacles on the other.
Traverse this on the “swine trail” overcoming Pigs Nose, Ham Stone and rocky Gammon Head the best formation of the three. A stark rocky limb thrust out into the ocean it sits high above its own gem of a cove at Maceley (Elander) where two towering pillars of rock guard a near perfect strip of golden sand from the rest of the world. A long way from the road and civilisation this is one place you should have to yourself.With some effort you will arrive at Prawle point (meaning Lookout Hill and it certainly lives up to its name) This is the Southernmost tip of Devon where the offshore island boils with rare cirl bunting, great Skuas, kittiwakes, shags and cormorants. A national coast watch lookout with a small visitor centre focussing on the birdlife sits on the cliffs whilst close by is another impressive natural rock arch.
The walk onto Start Point (steort meaning tail) becomes wilder and wilder, gorse, bracken, pasture 
and high cliffs frame the path but keep looking down for seals on the rocks along this section. The finger like headland at Start is one of the most exposed on this coast stretching almost a mile into the sea. The lighthouse at its tip built in 1836 is worth heading for and you can climb the 30m tower, reached along an exposed pinnacled spine of rocks the area around it streaked by quartz and schist formations over 395 million years old. Beyond Start after more effort you drop to the Viewing platform for the haunting hollow shells that are all that remains of Hallsands. A village of 37 houses a post office and The London Inn serving a population of 128 which in February 1903 was devastated by a storm that took the first row of dwellings to the sea. A second gale in 1917 took away the rest through the night, somehow everyone survived but the village was abandoned dramatically in the dark gale, the community broken by the waves the houses never to be returned to. Today a few ruins still cling on improbably to the rocky ledge below. Dredging for shingle offshore to be used back at Devonport (Plymouth) was to blame when it lowered the beach by 15 feet. At the time the theory was that the tide would replace the shingle...the theory failed and so the village was lost. As a local paper put it The beach went to Devonport and the cottages went to the sea.
The final descent today is to Beesands now hiding behind huge defence boulders and rock walls to prevent it going the way of Hallsands. The Cricket Inn is a welcome break and still kept in good use by the local shell fisherman. If the tide is out you can walk along the pebbles to reach your overnight stop in nearby Torcross if you are unlucky grab a second drink as it’s an inland diversion around the remains of Beesands Quarry.
Click Here to read about overnight stops in Torcross
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Section 5 Torcross to Dartmouth 10.5 miles – Std Route
Grade: Starts Easy then mainly Strenuous - Average Walking Time 5 hours not including breaks.
This morning you get your deserved respite from the crags and cliffs with a long flat beach section along the Slapton Ley Nature Reserve very different to anything seen so far. Some short inland diversions character this afternoons walk along with a stunning pine clad beach and the prize at the end of the walk with stay in stunning Dartmouth.
Slapton Ley Nature Reserve starts from the doorstep of Torcross, 521 acres of freshwater this is Devon’s largest natural lake, over 3000 years old and incorporating protected silty marshland and reed beds. A National Nature Reserve and protected since as far back as the early 1900’s, never mind the legions of ducks, grebes, swans and herons, rarer birds such as the Cettis warbler mix with sedge, reed warblers and widgeon. In the shallow waters numbers are kept in check somewhat by some 
monstrous pike who share the lake with freshwater eels. All this can be spotted from the bird watching hide and yes.... you would be lucky...but the Ley is also home to otter. The coast path itself follows “the line” as its simply known in the area, the line being the impressive low pebble and shingle bar stretching away from Torcross for 2 ½ miles a barrier between land and sea. Deposited just after the last ice age you have the Slapton Ley lake on one side and an exposed and windswept sea on the other.
Part way along the route you pass a large obelisk presented by the US Army in gratitude to the 2000 odd locals from seven nearby villages who were all asked to evacuate along with all their possessions and farm stock during the latter part of the 2nd world war to allow for the mass training exercises here in preparation for D-day. If you have not read the section about Torcross do so now to learn about the other more sombre memorial to this massive troop movement in a tragedy that occurred in the waters just beyond the line in 1944. The path finally leaves the shingle bank and the Ley to head inland at Strete leaving behind another lost village at Undercliffe which was lost way back in 1703. After some high pasture walking with great views back over the bar to Torcross, a steep woodland descent to a flight of stone steps welcomes you down to Blackpool Sands sitting in its own bay a stunning setting sheltered by evergreens and pines. Fear not, this beach is the opposite of its namesake though it’s also not the isolated coves of the last few days. You can hire water sports equipment here and have lunch at the organic Venus Cafe or just stop for a paddle in an award winning Blue Flag Beach. Inland if you want a diversion from the coast the restored 19C tropical Blackpool Gardens is open to the public a few minutes away. The coast path heads away from the coast and takes you through the appealing village of Stoke Fleming with its dramatic church whose tower acted as a landmark for the boats heading into Dartmouth.
At Blackstone Point having crossed a chasm by footbridge enjoy a switchback descent to Sugary Cove and one more climb before reaching wooded Gallants Bower and the gloriously situated 15C castle, a most impressive entrance to the gentle and rounded Dart Estuary. With the medieval harbourside of Dartmouth beckoning head for tonight’s stop enjoying the classic views across the water to Kingswear with its own castle as you return to sea level.
Click Here to read about overnight stops in Dartmouth
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Section 6 Dartmouth to Brixham 11 miles – Std Route
Grade: Strenuous 11 miles - Average Walking Time 6 hours not including breaks.
Ferry Crossing at Dartmouth (River Dart)
Don’t be deceived by your final day, yes the route heads onwards now to the edge of the urban area of Torbay but you have a run of strenuous ups and downs to cover before Brixham with a great end to the walk overlooking your destination and reflecting on your journey from a Napoleonic Headland Fort.
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