Post by Dave on Sept 13, 2010 16:45:59 GMT
Lynmouth & Watersmeet
I know its not Sunday, but being Easter I may not have the time to do it then, so I will put this thread up a few days early. Last Sunday I did part one The Valley Of The Rocks and this is part two of the same day out Carol and I enjoyed so much.
What happens is that our planed walks often end up near disasters as we get lost or take wrong turns and end up walking far more miles than we intended. I will bring you a few stories of such walks on another thread sometime.
After spending the whole morning at The Valley Of The Rocks we moved the car into Lynton and being a lovely day and me not really wanting to trust the cliff railway down into Lynmouth, we walked along a lovely path that slowly dropped us down into Lynmouth. The views from this path are breath taking and you get a great view what is the deepest natural gorge in England that goes to Watersmeet.
For those who may not know the worst post-war flooding disaster in Britain took place in the North Devon village of Lynmouth in 1952, in a tragedy which claimed 34 lives.The flooding occurred on 15 August 1952, after nine inches of rain fell in the space of 24 hours.
The downpour caused a wall of water to surge down from Exmoor onto Lynmouth. The East and West Lyn rivers, which drop down from Exmoor, were swollen even before the storm. Trees were uprooted and formed dams behind bridges, creating walls of water that carried huge boulders into the village.
In all, 34 people in Lynmouth and surrounding hamlets were killed, and 39 buildings collapsed. The army was drafted in to help with the clear-up.Speculation over the cause of the flooding has raged ever since the tragedy happened.
During August 1952, North Devon experienced 250 times the normal rainfall for the month, and on the day of the disaster, some 90m tonnes of water swept down the narrow valley into Lynmouth. Among the theories is that the rain was caused by experiments to artificially create rain.
Once in Lynmouth we stopped for a bit to eat and then set out to find Watersmeet, it’s a great walk through the gorge and you have a choice of paths you can use. You can take a path that takes you up high along the gorge or do the one Carol and I did known as the river walk, this one goes along the river, but you still have some big slopes to go up and down.
Feeling worn out not long after we were in the gorge I asked a man coming the other way how much further it was to Watersmeet. I asked as I was thinking about turning back and going no further. “It’s only about 10 Mins more walking” he proclaimed, well he was a bloody liar and we walked a good 45 Mins more to get there.
Still it was worthwhile but now we were faced with the long walk back into Lynmouth, I make no secret of the fact I was struggling, while Carol as fresh as a daisy. Once back into Lynmouth I had the choice to risk that cliff railway (it only works by water you know!) or walked up the main road back to the car park in Lynton.
That turned out to be a very big mistake as it must be the steepest road you will ever find to walk up, still I got there in the end after having to stop far more times than I would have liked. A great day out, only I just over done it a bit.
