Today we went for a short (just under 3.5 miles) walk around Upottery in East Devon. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this place, Upottery is an idyllic little village, nestled into the Otter Valley, just off of the A30 close to Honiton. Here we had a series of Geocaches to do, which would take us on a walk around the village, through country lanes and footpaths. As it’s a fairly quiet Village, we were able to park on the roadside, just along from the local pub the ‘Sidmouth Arms’ , close to a crossroads.

We parked just up the road from the Sidmouth Arms. This pub was looking very inviting.

From here we walked down past the pub, and then took the first turning on the left, with St Mary’s Church on our right. Here we noticed an array of smilestones laid out around a War Memorial, I assume these were painted by the local children in the village. A lot of them were painted with rainbows and were thanking the NHS, obviously due to the pandemic we are currently dealing with.

Beautiful Thatch Cottages, with St Mary’s Church behind, and smilestones around the war memorial in the foreground.

After turning left on this road, we walked down past a cottage on our left, and were treated to beautiful views of the countryside ahead of us. From here we followed the road all the way around, past a house selling hand picked flowers for a small donation going towards their village hall. We soon came to our first geocache beside a footbridge over a stream. I won’t give anything away to anyone who wants to enjoy doing these caches, but some of the containers were rather interesting. For those of you unaware of what geocaching is, its a worldwide treasure hunt, a bit like letter boxing, but using GPS and a free app on your phone to log when you’ve found them. It’s pretty straightforward really, all you need is a pen and the app on your phone!

We came to our first geocache, by the bridge.

The River Otter passing under the bridge.

We took this road all the way up, soon turning left at the first turning we came to. Here was another geocache we found, before carrying on up this road, taking in the views of the village as we passed farm gates to our left. As we found another geocache by one of these farm gates, I spotted a buzzard circling above us and swooping down a few times towards the hedgerows. After watching the buzzard for a while, we then continued down this road, where we soon arrived at a footpath to our left. Walking along this path, we spotted plenty of wildlife, amongst them were red admiral and cabbage white butterflies, as well as being surprised by a couple of golden-ringed dragonflies that stood out from afar with their black and yellow markings. We were soon surprised to see a river flowing infront of us, which was of course the River Otter. At first we wondered how we would cross this river, until we got closer, then spotted the wooden foot bridge to the right.

Looking at the River Otter flowing under the bridge.

We stopped on the bridge for a while, watching the river gushing past, before (eventually!) finding the next geocache which was situated in this area. From here we then walked up through the field, crossing a stile, then turning right up a leafy lane. Once we came to a junction on this lane, we kept to our left, where we soon found ourselves looking for another geocache in this series. Once found, we took a moment to take in the views of the rolling hills over the nearby gates before taking the path to our left.

The leafy lane we walked up, turning left at this junction.

Along this next stretch of the path, we came across a large puddle of water, again wondering how we would cross it, until we noticed a raised path we could take to our left, with steps formed by the roots of the trees. Jo however decided to take the puddle route! We continued on from here, ignoring the path that goes off to the left, instead carrying on straight ahead up this lane. Along this path, we noticed some sheep and their lambs in a field, as we went to the gate to take a closer look, they came over to say hello, which was a nice surprise as they are usually very timid. From here we carried on up the hill and soon spotted a cottage roof peeping through the trees up ahead, showing us we were heading back in the direction of the village.

At the top of the hill came to a crossroads; Here we turned left down the main road which would take us back into Upottery, but first we stopped here to admire the fantastic views of the rolling hills and hedgerows which were now behind us. From this view point, we could also spot St Mary’s Church nestled into Upottery, which is just to the right of the photo below.

After taking in the views, we walked down the hill, admiring some of the pretty buildings on either side of us. We soon passed a public footpath to our right, which looked interesting, but as we were following a geocache loop, we ignored the footpath, instead continuing on down the hill into the village. After plenty more gorgeous views of the local countryside, we were soon met with the entrance sign to Upottery, by now we had found 3 more geocaches, and it wasn’t long before we found the last one of this series as we walked past the old Victorian school house on our left. From this point, we soon arrived back to where we started in the Village. However, we decided to ‘clear the area’ of caches, by completing two more that aren’t part of this loop. We walked back past the pub, (somehow resisting the urge to go in for our first post-lockdown pint!) and entered the Church graveyard. After inspecting several headstones we discovered the coordinates for the next cache, and walked around the corner where the cache is found close to an old manor house, hidden behind the Church.

St Mary’s Church, where we found the coordinates for our next cache.

The countryside views by the Manor House.

Once we had found and signed our last geocache, we made our way back past the stone houses and the (still very welcoming!) pub to our car. We both agreed we would have to come back and try out the local pub and perhaps walk to explore the neighbouring village of Smeatharpe, which a nearby sign informed us was just 2.5 miles away. This walk was very leisurely, and although involved a few country lanes to walk down, they didn’t seem to get too busy, so would be fine for families and dogs. Be sure to try out the local geocaches as we were able to log all of them, with some being in interesting containers and most of them weren’t too hard!

The old stone houses and beer garden, Upottery.

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With the nice weather we’ve been having lately, we decided to make the most of it and explore another coastal walk. We decided on North Devon, mainly because we haven’t explored a lot of North Devon walks, but also because there’s a lighthouse on this walk, and anyone that knows me, knows I love lighthouses. The walk we did starts off in a little village close to Woolacombe, called Mortehoe. Here we parked in the main pay and display car park and turned left up the road where we spotted a pub (The Ship Aground) and then the local church (St Mary’s), looking beautiful in the sunshine with lots of flowers decorating the entrance.

St Mary’s Church to the left, and local pub, ‘The Ship Aground’ to the right.

From here we carried on walking down the road to our left, keeping the Church on our right. We then passed lots of pretty houses and another Church. Here we spotted a public footpath to our right, but we ignored this one and instead walked down a bit further until we spotted the National Trust gated footpath that led onto the coast path. Once through the gate we were treated to some stunning views of the glistening sea and the spectacular Woolacombe beach where we could see many families and surfers enjoying the sun, as we walked past lambs grazing on the land.

Footpath leading to Morte point, with sea views in the distance.

As we followed the footpath up a hill, we stopped to look back and take in the views; as it was such a clear day, looking past the numerous surfers on the water we were able to see Baggy Point jutting out in the distance. This path soon descended down a hill, still with views of the sea and Woolacombe beach to the left, and the small Churchyard to the right.

Views of Woolacombe beach and Baggy Point.

As we followed this path through another gate, we found that it becomes a bit narrow as we walked between some gorse. We then turned left onto a wider path that would lead us to Morte Point. It was here that we realised we could have taken a clearer path earlier on, that would have also joined onto Morte Point and not been so narrow, but the one we walked was still passable and took us to where we aimed to go.

Views of Morte Point from the Coast path.

The views from this part of the coast path are far from disappointing. We stopped for a moment to watch the waves crashing on the jagged rocks below before climbing up some rocky steps to continue along the coast path. As we turned a corner we could spot our destination, Bull Point Lighthouse, in the distance. which in the intense heat felt like miles away!

Taking in the views of the sea and surf.

A glimpse of Bull Point lighthouse in the distance.

Looking down at the bay of rocks below, I remarked to Jo that we hadn’t yet spotted any seals, and at that moment, I then saw a seal pop it’s head out of the water, and then as we walked a bit further on, we spotted another seal, bobbing about in the waves. We decided to take a drinks break here on one of the benches at the top of the hill to see if we could spot any more seals (we didn’t!) before heading in the direction of the lighthouse.

Sea views and Bull Point Lighthouse in the distance.

As we carried on, we reached a fork in the path with a signpost telling us Mortehoe Village was to the right. In spite of the heat we thought we’d press on to the lighthouse, so we took the path to the left to carry on along the coast which eventually lead us through a gate and more steps to climb. From here we had views of Whiting Cove, which can sometimes be popular with sunbathing seals. As we got a closer view of the cove we looked out for any more seals but couldn’t see any, so we carried on down more steps, through yet another gate and followed the signpost for Bull Point.

Views of Whiting Cove below, before taking the steps down towards Rockham Bay.

We spotted Rockham Bay with a boardwalk staircase leading down to it, but as we got closer, we saw a sign saying these steps down to the bay were closed... We quickly realised why: the wooden steps had collapsed, possibly in a recent storm, and now left the bay inaccessible.

Rockham beach, you can just about see where the wooden steps have collapsed.

From here, we had a bit of a hill climb, which was made more strenuous in the heatwave we were having this week. Once at the top, we had a quick stop to admire the views around us before taking the steps down and then up yet another hill. From this post, you can probably tell there’s several hills and steps to climb on this stretch of the South West Coast path, but the views make it worth the effort! Once at the top of this hill we looked back at the frothy surf crashing on the rocks below before reading the Informative map about Bull Point. Once we reached the top of the next slope, we were greeted with Bull Point Lighthouse standing proudly on Bull Point itself. This lighthouse was actually relocated here from Mortehoe back in the 1970s. There is no public access to the lighthouse itself, but there are holiday cottages here that you can stay in, owned by Trinity house, which if like me, you have a (strange?) interest in lighthouses, you’ll know Trinity House are a charity that own and run most lighthouses in the UK.

Looking back at yet another hill we just climbed.

Bull Point Lighthouse and holiday cottages.

After a quick break to look at the lighthouse, we decided to take the road to the right, which as a signpost told us, would lead back to Mortehoe, 1 mile away. We would have carried on to Sandy Cove and Lee Bay but it was already nearly 5pm so we decided we would do that walk another day. This route back to Mortehoe took us up a country lane decorated with plenty of foxgloves. A short walk up the lane and we were soon met with a holiday park and houses. From here, we took the road straight down the hill into the village, with views of the sea peeking between the houses on our right.

I soon spotted the post office at the bottom of the road, which I recognised from the start of our walk as it sold quirky and cute holiday souvenirs that were displayed in the windows. After having a quick glimpse in the post office window, we crossed the road and entered the car park that we had began our walk in. For anyone wondering, I worked out we walked around 4.5miles today, it’s a little strenuous in places but can be walked at a leisurely pace and is worth the walk for the views of the North Devon Coast and beaches. If you have the time, Woolacombe beach is well worth a visit, and maybe try out a bit of surfing while you’re there!

Upottery Geocache Loop

Morte Point and Bull Point Lighthouse