Red Triassic cliffs, pebble heaths and the western start of the Jurassic Coast, with easy coast-path walking
The Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site starts here, at the red cliffs near Exmouth, and the rocks get steadily younger as you walk east towards Dorset. Those deep red sandstones colour the beaches and sea stacks, best seen at Ladram Bay, where the stacks stand just offshore.
The National Landscape covers 269 square kilometres of coast and heath. Behind the shore lie the Pebblebed Heaths, a stretch of open heather and gorse built on a bed of rounded pebbles washed down by ancient rivers, the same pebbles you find on the beach at Budleigh Salterton. The South West Coast Path runs the length of the seaward edge.
At the eastern end, the Axmouth to Lyme Regis Undercliffs are a tumbled world of landslips where the land has slumped towards the sea, now a tangled nature reserve with a single path through and no way off in the middle. Good boots and time in hand are worth having there.
