Now for a walk in the park...
Superstar weekend
The twin villages of Lynton and Lynmouth make the perfect basecamp to walk to two of Exmoor’s best beloved views. Like a ying-yang pairing, one route is all shady curves through a deep wooded combe to Watersmeet, while the other treads high on angular cliffs by the Valley of Rocks and up Hollerday Hill. You likely won’t get these particular spots to yourself, unless you walk at dawn or dusk, but as a taster of the treats Exmoor has to offer, they’re hard to beat.
Lost in a good book
For readers around the world the area of Exmoor around Malmsmead will forever be the Doone Country of R.D. Blackmore’s romance Lorna Doone (1869). The tale took inspiration from real people and places and you can walk by Doone Farm, along Badgworthy Water through Doone Valley to an abandoned village that was recast as the Doone stronghold, and up over the moors that the OS has officially marked as Doone Country. The church at Oare is also close by, where ( spoiler alert! alert!) ) Lorna is shot on her wedding day. Turn to Walk 2 in this issue for a full route.
The wild side
The atmospherically-named upland of The Chains is one of the remotest and least-walked places in this least-visited national park. Its grass moors are swept by wind and ooze aqua– in patches of blanket bog, in the high pool of Pinkery Pond, in the tumbling rivers that spring to life on its slopes including the Exe, the West Lyn and the Barle. The Tarka Trail threads a clear route across it, named for the river-living otter of Henry Williamson’s much-loved book, and links with other paths to make a wild, refreshing walk for a hot summer day.
Go with the flow
Of all the pretty rivers that slice through Exmoor’s sandstone massif, the Barle is arguably the comeliest. Rarely tangling with roads, it burbles between banks stacked with ancient woodland, much as it’s done for centuries. Salmon leap upstream to spawn, kingfishers flash turquoise, otters hide out, and the river alternates between languid pool and burbling chuckle as you walk south from Withypool to the clapper-bridge of Tarr Steps. Continue up Winsford Hill, , with its scooped out Punchbowl, for a bird’s eye view across the park.
The bay area
Porlock Bay is a picturesque spot of quay and cobble-beach, and walks to east and west are both alluring. East leads across the shingle to climb the bluff to Hurlstone Point and up to Selworthy Beacon. West heads through Porlock Weir and out through coastal woodlands to Culbone, the smallest parish church in England, before returning past houses linked with Coleridge and Lady Lovelace, Lord Byron’s daughter and an unlikely pioneer of computer programming. The choice between east and west is tough – or you could stay a while and do both.
Top of the park
As you climb to Dunkery Beacon you can feel your heart swell in response to the sheer wide span of its views. A big beehive cairn marks this highest point on Exmoor at 1705 ft/ 519m where the panorama just billows for miles across the park’s moors, fields and combes, and beyond to the glinting sea and Dartmoor shading the south horizon. You can park up less than a mile from the summit but you get a better take on Dunkery’s stature – and a quieter one too – if you start down at Wheddon Cross and walk the valley woodlands full of wildflowers on your way to the top.
Find full guides to all these walks at www. lfto.bom/bonusroutes