Sidmouth; Sunday, 02 June, 2019

Another early start to get breakfast and then after checking out a wander over to the bus stop, hoping to avoid the impending rain, which I did manage to do only getting lightly drizzled on in the last few feet.

I caught the bus up over the cliffs to Seaton and then on to the border with Dorset and down into the town of Lyme Regis. The town is the centre of the Jurassic Coast world heritage site and the town probably most associated with the fossil finds that have made this part of the coast famous.

I wandered around the centre of town a bit, and was trying to decide whether to visit the museum when the skies made my mind up for me by taking that moment to open. I was glad they did as it’s a very impressive museum for the small space it’s crammed into. Lots of fossils sit alongside exhibits on the history of the town and area. If being the centre of the British fossil trade wasn’t enough claim to fame there was also a large exhibition on Jane Austins connections to the town.

By the time I’d finished looking round the museum the skies had cleared a little, so I took a risk and wandered along the seafront to the Cobb at the far end of the beach. I had a look around the Cobb area, but then the drizzle decided to come back. I headed back along the seafront moving between awnings, shelters and doorways that could be sheltered in as the weather kept switching between a background persistent drizzle and occasional hefty downpours.

By the time I made it back to the centre of town I was pretty wet, and still had 45 minutes to wait for the next bus back to Sidmouth, so I popped over the road and found a very nice warm pub that was serving local beer.

35 minutes late, quite a bit dryer and fortified by a pint of Dorset Gold I headed out of the pub in time to pick up the bus back to Sidmouth.

As the bus left Lyme Regis is climbed up the steep roads to the main road up on the cliffs, and as it climbed the clouds came lower, eventually by the time we turned onto the main road at the top visibility couldn’t have been more than 50 yards, if that. The journey back to Sidmouth passed through a number of different types of weather – the only continuous feature being that they were all damp.

I arrived back in Sidmouth into a damp mizzle that ensured by the time I’d walked to the hotel to collect my luggage I was quite damp again, although at least here I was able to get an additional top out of my luggage to keep myself a little dryer on the walk back to the bus stop to wait for the next bus back to Exeter.

Somewhere along the way the weather finally started to improve with the clouds clearing and the sun even coming out just as Exeter came into view. The bus ended its route in the Bus station on the North Eastern edge of the city centre. Sadly my hotel for the night was on the South Western edge so I had a 15 minute tramp across the city centre in now quite warm weather before I was able to check into the hotel, head up to my room and have a very refreshing shower and change into some dry clothes, before fishing out the work laptop and completing some work ready for the following day.