"Exmoor National Park" Top 5 Page for this destination Devon Things to Do Tip by Bwana_Brown

Exmoor National Park takes a bit of driving to get to, due to it's location along the north coast of both Devon and Somerset. The western part of the park lies within Devon and includes not only moorlands and forests but also a very impressive coastline. England's highest cliff, the 800-ft Great Hangman is located here, not far from Coombe Martin and there are many miles of coastline that have no landward access. Another unusual feature of this part of Exmoor is that it contains the most extensive broad-leafed coastal forest (mostly oak, ash and hazel) in Britain, in part because the high cliffs protect the trees from salt spray off the Bristol Channel. As if life was not difficult enough, this shoreline also has tides of about 33-ft range, the second highest in the world (behind the 50+ foot tides of the Bay of Fundy not far from where I live in Canada).

This photo shows a late afternoon view from the cliffs as we are about to descend into one of the deep cuts caused by a river valley, in this case the River Lyn. The town nestled by the sandbar at the mouth of the river is Lynmouth, one of only a few towns along this coast. Formerly a fishing port, the main source of business is now tourism. There were several signs along this part of the A39 highway warning us of 25% grades (1 in 4 changes in elevation) coming up! It is a pity that we did not have time to tarry for a better look around, but we had to cover more ground this day in order to be in position to reach Cornwall by the following afternoon.

Directions: Exmoor coastline near Lynmouth, south coast of the Bristol Channel