A 180-mile figure-of-eight through north Devon, centred on Barnstaple, with a long traffic-free rail path at its heart
The Tarka Trail is a 180-mile figure-of-eight looping out from Barnstaple in north Devon and back again, so there is no single start or finish — you join whichever loop you want. The northern loop reaches up into Exmoor and comes back along the coast; the southern loop runs inland through Bideford and Great Torrington and down towards the edge of Dartmoor at Okehampton.
Its best-known stretch is the 31-mile section between Braunton and Meeth, which follows a disused railway. It is level, surfaced and entirely traffic-free, running beside the Taw and Torridge estuaries for much of the way, and is one of the most popular cycling routes in the West Country as well as an easy walk. The rest of the figure-of-eight is ordinary footpath — hillier, quieter, and made for walking rather than wheels.
The trail is named after Tarka the Otter, Henry Williamson’s 1927 novel, whose otter ranges across the rivers of north Devon; the route was laid out to trace that country. The rail path itself uses a line that closed to passengers in 1965 and to freight in 1982 before reopening as a trail in 1992. Barnstaple, at the centre of it all, still sits on the surviving Tarka Line, the railway that follows the Taw down from Exeter.
