The Axe is a modest river by most standards, rising in the hills of Dorset and winding down through east Devon to the English Channel at Axmouth, but it has a long history for something so unassuming. The Romans came up this valley, and the town of Axminster, about nine kilometres from this point, was a nodal point on the Fosse Way, the great diagonal road that ran from Exeter up to Lincoln. The river gave Axminster its name and the town gave carpets to the world: the first Axminster carpet was woven there in the mid eighteenth century, and the name has been on floors ever since.
The valley is a rewarding area to ride, a country of small green hills, hedge-lined lanes and hidden villages with thatched roofs and honey-coloured stone. The roads are narrow and winding, sometimes sunk deep between banks so high that you cannot see the next bend, and the surfaces can be rough and muddy after rain. A big touring bike will feel cramped on the smaller lanes, but a lighter machine will find it great fun. Tractors are frequent, and in summer the coastal roads fill with holiday traffic heading for Lyme Regis and Seaton.
At the mouth of the river sits the Axe estuary, a nature reserve and tidal marsh, beloved by birdwatchers for the waders and wildfowl that gather there, and traversed by a tram line that runs out of Seaton. Nearby, the cliffs of the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site, run east to Lyme Regis, where the fossil hunter Mary Anning found the first complete ichthyosaur skeleton as a girl. The beach there still gives up ammonites to patient searchers after winter storms, though you should watch the tide and the cliff falls.
Lyme Regis, with about four and a half thousand people, has fuel nearby, cafés along the Cobb, the old stone harbour wall made famous by Jane Austen's Persuasion, and fish and chips of a reliability that makes the place well worth the visit. Axminster, a bit larger, has a supermarket and a garage.
Come on a weekday in May or September and the lanes belong to you. In July and August, plan on queues at the coast.