Overview
Discover challenging and dramatic walking trails shaped by the footsteps of traders, smugglers, saints and pirates. Cornish walking trails will reveal ancient tin mines, clifftop castles, timeless fishing villages and wild moors as you travel through a landscape of huge cliffs and hidden coves that goes back to the depths of time itself. In between the coastal drama, iconic harbours such as St Ives and Padstow give walkers access to some of the UK‘s best restaurants and coastal hotels. A county encircled by the wild Atlantic ocean, there is over 330 miles of spectacular world class coast path here taking you around the farthest corners of England - put simply it feels like walking on the edge of the world.
Stretching from coast to coast across the southwest of England, Devon is a richly diverse county with rugged shores and cliffs in the north, and classic Victorian seaside resorts in the south. In between you'll find tranquil green pastures, wooded gorges and the two dramatic wild moors in the National Parks of Dartmoor and Exmoor. Choose Devon for its walking variety, and you'll find that the popular image of cream teas and thatched cottages is true - but that Devon is so much more once you explore it on two feet. Coast to coast routes like the Two Moors Way will offer a journey through it all from the wild northern shores that inspired the Romantic poets to the maritime ports of the south coast.
Free your soul and clear your mind! Walking on the wild moors of these National Parks is a wonderful antidote to modern living. England's last true wilderness, Dartmoor offers 365 square miles of virtually uninhabited freedom with high moors and twisted dramatic granite tors a land of myths, ghosts and legends. Exmoor, its smaller and more gentle neighour, is 250 Square miles of near perfect and unique beauty, with high uplands swathed in heather and steep, wooded gorges and rushing streams. See Dartmoor ponies and Exmoor stags in these wildlife rich areas, home to 30 species of mammals and over 240 types of bird. The moors offer a unique opportunity for more challenging walking where the only human sound you will hear is the rhythm of your own breath.
Avoid the crowds and discover “Secret Somerset” missed by so many rushing headlong for the far South West. The 'land of the summer people' was named in a time when this area could only be visited in the summer months as the sea receded. Today its a rich, fertile and 'for real' landscape crowned by the fine walking ridges of the Mendip and Quantock Hills both protected areas of outstanding natural beauty. Rising up over King Arthur‘s Vale of Avalon along with the magical Tor at Glastonbury, walkers will find hidden gorges, wooded combes and the best inland panoramas of the South West. Also boasting its own Jurassic Coast Path, providing a gateway into the wilds of Exmoor National Park, Somerset offers walking routes without the crowds for those who want to find..... what the rest miss.
Dorset has a comfortable old world “English” feel to it and its walking routes traverse a rather more green and agricultural land of thatched cottages, cream teas.... and fossils ! Walkers here will find the more gentle rolling farmland, pretty villages and chalk ridges beloved by Thomas Hardy that sweep down to end abruptly at the World Heritage Jurassic Coast. Here, alongside the sea, those after more challenging routes can take a walking holiday through time itself amongst the dramatic chalk stacks, cliffs and arches of the Dorsetshire fossil coast. An area that can be very busy in high season but often suits walkers looking for more gentle and less exposed walking than the far west of the region.
Wales offers some of the best walking and outdoor activities to be had anywhere in the world. The 870-mile Welsh Coast Path was only fully opened in 2012 and is the world's first walk along the entire coast of a nation. The terrain is on an equally grand scale with towering cliffs, vast stretches of unspoilt golden sands, imposing castles, offshore islands and to the north there is the backdrop of Snowdonia National Park with its stunning mountains. Wales in general offers walkers great value for money compared to more popular areas like Cornwall with walking options to suit everyone, from those who want the cosmopolitan restaurants and facilities of towns like Tenby and St Davids, through to isolated and remote forests and coastal hills that sit on the very cusp of the Snowdonian Peaks. Bursting with confidence and pride in its “Welshness”, its Celtic history, language and culture there has never been a better time for walkers to enter Wales.
The South West Coast Path is the UK's longest National Trail and one of the top ten walking routes in the world. It snakes, dips and rises continuously on its way through a staggering 1014km (630 miles) of pristine coastline, 450 miles of which is through nationally protected areas. It's a challenge too; walking the entire South West Coast Path is the equivalent to scaling Mount Everest four times! From towering cliffs to hidden coves, ghostly tin mines to lush subtropical wooded creeks. One minute a dramatic rock theatre hewn out of the cliffs, the next a prehistoric fossilized forest or a 20thC Art Deco Island Hotel. What sets The South West Coast Path apart from other trails is that around almost every corner is yet another surprise as you retrace the footsteps and histories of the tin miners, fisherman, smugglers, wreckers and the customs men who chased them.
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87 Miles from Somerset to the Cornwall Borders walking the very start of the South West Coast Path
If you aim to walk all 630 miles of the South West Coast Path (and once you start believe us you won’t want to leave it unfinished) then the opening section from Minehead is your geographic introduction to this UK National Walking Trail......and you could not ask for a more dramatic start or experience more of a contrast in scenery in your first week of walking.
Leaving the tame Somerset levels at Minehead you are immediately thrust straight into another world climbing the dramatic hogback hills of Exmoor National Park where it feels like you walk on the edge of the world. Lonely moors meet the cliffs here to tumble into the mighty Atlantic as stunning waterfalls cascade from rocky heights to impenetrable jagged outcrops far below.
Inspiring to so many this is Lorna Doone Country, home to Kubla Khan and a walk taking you through a blaze of yellow gorse, and purple heather. The mysterious atmosphere is all around, the heath, at times cloaked in mists and punctured by twisted rock towers as you climb towering crags above churning seas and enter ancient coastal woodland that clings to the edge of the trail before it plunges into ravine like coombes and untouched hidden coves.
At Great Hangman you will ascend from sea level to scale the highest point on the whole 630 miles of coast path your reward relentless panoramic views across the moors of Devon, across the water to the mountains of Wales and ahead to beckoning vistas and seascapes in distant Cornwall, an endless run of cliffs and coves each one looking better than the last.
Hardy weathered sheep, magnificent stag herds, feral goats and Exmoor ponies watch you from one side while on the other you are accompanied by basking seals, peregrine falcons, razorbill, kittiwake and the ever present swooping buzzards
Then come the contrasts as you leave mighty Exmoor National Park to enter a new world on the North Devon Coast amongst expanses of unspoilt sandy beach drawing you into the golden softer dunes of the expansive Taw and Torridge estuaries. The former habitat of Tarka the Otter this protected area is a remote sanctuary for wildlife, the South West Coast Path here being tranquil, meandering along disused railway lines and ancient sand paths. Protected salt marsh estuary ablaze with wild flowers, rich in mammals and wading birds and for walkers compared to other west coast sections an unfound area, remote, inspirational and far less visited.
History surrounds you as you tread in the footsteps of hardy moorland clansmen, wreckers, smugglers and the Custom Men that chased them. Fractured headlands and reefs, jagged and menacing recall this dark smuggling and wrecking past as you encounter Brandy Cove, Breakneck Point, Damage Cliff and the aptly named Desolation. In between the walking you will stay overnight in everything from charming coastal villages and fishing ports to the Grand Victorian holiday retreats loved by the poets and the romantics.
And it’s not just walking....opt to arrive in style by steam train or try your hand at taking on Devon’s most sought after waves with a board or kite surfing lesson or try fun fuelled Coasteering the only way to fully engage with the local coastline. Eat amongst the pickled fish at the artist Damien Hurst's seaside restaurant, visit the Country's smallest Church and its largest Biosphere dune systems. Finally don’t miss the chance to take a day out on the ultimate island get away with a ferry crossing from the path to leave the modern world behind for the isolated ancient sites and towering cliffs on stunning, car free Lundy Island.
Whatever your plans as you pass along the North Devon Coast Path to reach Westward Ho after 87 miles this opening section of the South West Coast Path will have given you a true flavour of the richness and variety to come on the next 630 miles and above all else a definitive “walk in” entrance to Exmoor and the wider West Country to remember forever.
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