10.6 km along the coast and 4.2 km inland.
The remainder of section 56 in the SWCPA handbook
Since the journey from home is getting longer, we stopped at one of our favourite campsite that we had found earlier in the summer, Hook Farm in Uplyme overnight, walked down to Lyme Regis and then drove to Torquay. I had found out that there is a carpark at Torquay station that looked a good place to start, but the post code took us to the north of the station where there was limited free parking, so we set off from there.
The inland route took us down to the beach near the Grand Hotel and there were a few people swimming and then over a footbridge to the edge or Torquay town centre. Sadly, clearly this is a rather divided town as there were homeless people sleeping at the back of posh hotels.
We then followed a suburban road to St Marychurch, where we re-joined to official coastal path just a couple of hundred meters south of where we had left it in September.
The first part lead fairly steeply down and then under the Babbacombe funicular lift that runs to Oddicombe and then down to Babbacombe beach where we stopped for lunch on the old harbour wall.
There was a noisy RIB that seemed to just stop for a few minutes and then a group of Open water swimmers who set-off across the Bay.
Another few fairly steep assents and descents and then along the fairly level Bishops Walk lead us to Meadfoot beach where again people were swimming in the October sunshine. Then into Torquay and across the harbour where we watched the pedestrian bridge open to allow a yacht into the inner harbour. This part of Torquay has been recently developed and looked to be thriving, so back to collect Frodo from the train station.
We drove about 9 miles to Wall Park Campsite in Brixham where we had booked for three nights and walked into the town. Having stopped for a drink outside a pub, we were told the pub welcomed people to buy Fish and Chips from the shop next door to eat in the pub. So, we thought that we should try “the best fish and chips in town” and were rewarded both with good food and being entertained by the locals enjoying Saturday night out.
