Carol's Dynamic Dorset Dawdle!
Schedule
Sun, 07 Sep, 2025 at 10:30 am
UTC+01:00Location
Uplyme Village Hall, Lyme Rd, Uplyme, Lyme Regis DT7 3UY | Lyme Regis, EN
This walk is a strenuous 15 miles and being led by Chris.I will lead this and is one of Carol's big birthday walks that she will be doing during September. You can talk to her about what she's doing on the day.
We will start from Uplyme village hall car park. A donation is required by each car so please bring some small change. We have to leave it in the postbox.
The walk starts with a perfectly pleasant stroll down the stunning River Lym (sometimes called Lim) into the centre of Lyme Regis. Ice cream stop and swim are both possibilities. We then turn west along the sea-front passing beach huts, gambling machines and fish & chip kiosks before promenading along the Cobb – weather permitting. (The Cobb is a key location in Jane Austen’s Persuasion & John Fowles’ French Lieutenant’s Woman).
We continue west into the car park then turn away from the coast up several flights of steps. Good for the heart! At the top of the steps we turn west and follow the coast path to the Undercliff walk. Following landslips around 1839 the farmland here was abandoned. Left to nature it has turned into a verdant jungle. The path enters this world of greenery; so twilit it almost feels as though we are underwater. We shortly reach a signpost that warns that it takes 3.5 to 4 hours to cover the next 6 miles to Seaton. It is rather slow going, winding around over tree-roots and climbing up and down steps but there are digressions to view the Wash Rock, a chimney and a sheep wash on route. We will keep each other going with a jelly baby or 2. We finally emerge at Goat Island (a good place for lunch?). Shortly after we head down Stepps Lane into Axmouth and turning east come back out up Bushes Lane. This is probably the longest climb of the day, but it is not steep and goes up in a couple of stages. We cross the A3052 (good view of cars in both directions) then take a path that curves downhill into Combpyne then a quiet country road that comes back up out of the combe to reach and cross Trinity Hill Road. After passing a particularly good set of blackberry bushes ( bring a tub ) we head off left across the fields and through the woods to Holcombe. Then we contour across the hillside before descending into Venlake with good views of Cannington viaduct on our right. Finally we turn half left and head over the fields with fine views of Lyme Regis down to the Uplyme cricket pitch and village hall.
