Orcombe Rocks to Chit Rocks and Chesil

Scenic road chapters

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Orcombe Rocks to Chit Rocks

   Where the Otter meets the sea near Budleigh Salterton, the cliffs turn red. This is the start of the Jurassic Coast, the stretch of Dorset and East Devon coast that UNESCO listed in 2001 because the cliffs tell a continuous story of 185 million years. At the eastern end, at Orcombe Point in Exmouth, a stone sculpture called the Geoneedle marks the beginning, and from there the rocks run from the red sandstones of the Triassic towards the white chalk of the east. The section between Orcombe Rocks and Chit Rocks is the oldest, a wall of red cliff, sandy beach and sea stacks that look as if they were painted.

   Read the complete Orcombe Rocks to Chit Rocks write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Orcombe Rocks to Chit Rocks is where the day begins. Next is Dorset and East Devon Coast.

2. 2. Dorset and East Devon Coast

   The cliffs around Lyme Regis are made of dark, crumbling clay and shale, and every winter storm brings some of them down. That is why fossil hunters love them. In the early nineteenth century a local girl named Mary Anning, the daughter of a carpenter, found the skeleton of an ichthyosaur on the beach and went on to unearth some of the first plesiosaurs, earning a grudging place in a scientific world that did not welcome women. The ammonites, fossil crinoids and sea-reptile bones that still turn up here are nearly two hundred million years old, and the whole coast from Exmouth to Studland, the Jurassic Coast, was listed by UNESCO in 2001 for its record of Earth history.

   Read the complete Dorset and East Devon Coast write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Dorset and East Devon Coast comes up about 29 km into the recorded legs. Next is Chesil.

3. 3. Chesil

   Twenty-nine kilometres of shingle, piled high and steep and running almost dead straight from West Bay to the Isle of Portland: Chesil Beach is one of the great natural oddities of the English coast. Behind it lies the Fleet, a long, shallow, brackish lagoon full of eelgrass and birds, and the whole system is part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. The pebbles grade in size along the beach, small as peas at the western end and as big as potatoes towards Portland, so precisely that smugglers landing on dark nights were said to know where they were by the feel of the stones.

   Read the complete Chesil write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 73 km into the recorded legs you reach Chesil. Next is back through Dorset and East Devon Coast.

4. 4. back through Dorset and East Devon Coast

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Dorset and East Devon Coast write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Dorset and East Devon Coast, late in the day. Next is Orcombe Rocks to Chit Rocks.

5. 5. Orcombe Rocks to Chit Rocks

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Orcombe Rocks to Chit Rocks write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Back at Orcombe Rocks to Chit Rocks. That is the ride.