Where is the best place to go on The Jurassic Coast?
 

Hopefully we'll have an afternoon to see some of the Jurassic Coast. I'm a little confused as to how best to see it. Walk? Boat trip? The website has some neat walks with guides, but they are only on certain days. I would like to know what I'm looking at as I love geology but find it confusing at times!

The website has several "gateway towns" with museums etc, just not sure where we should go.

Any suggestions?

I don't know that there is any best place. I'd personally choose Lyme Regis, but I wouldn't be unhappy at Sidmouth or Exmouth or Ottery St Mary -- and there are others that I've not been to that are probably equally fine.

Since you are only allowing a half day for the visit, I would think your choice would depend on where you are staying the night before, how you are planning to spend the other half of the day, your mode of transportation, etc.

Though it's marketed as the Jurassic Coast, the geology stuff (and, more important, the history of geology stuff) is a small part of the area's atrractions.

Essentially, it's a pleasant UK domestic seaside holiday area. If quiet coves and nice country walks aren't what you're looking for, and it's the discovery of dinosaurs that's really interesting, then:
- you're in a small minority of the area's visitors, and
- you must organise yourself around what the websites say about the availability of guided tours

We will be staying at Larkbeare Grange near Ottery St Mary, and we will have a car. Other possibilities that day would be Exeter Castle and Bicton College and Gardens.

We will have done some walking on the coastal path in North Devon and Cornwall by that time so I was looking for more than another beautiful walk.

I think the boat trip will take too long, maybe we could hire someone for an hour or two?

If you're actually interested in fossils then really Lyme Regis is the place to be.

There's a place called the Undercliff thre where you can hunt of ancient beasties.

It's a nice little town too.

Lulworth or Lyme Regis are the two obvious. From Lulworth, walk down to the bay then East up to Durdle Door.

Lyme regis the bay is bigger and I'd try for low tide and walk from the East cliff (on top if you have time) to the West.

Don't forget to buy some Dorset Knobs, try them and throw the rest of the packet away

Actually for Lyme Regis read Kimeridge so you can walk by the oil donkey

Dorset Knobs and an oil donkey ?????????????????????????????????

We are a strange people. We suck knobs and oil donkeys.

Well, some do.

this is getting more interesting than fossils..........................

so have mercy on a clueless American and spill !

dorset knob is a small biscuit in the form of a 2" sphere. Very dry and tasteless. They are baked 3 times and, as Mrs Bilbo says, "why?"

Good news, if as a kid you grew up sailing off the dorset coast and were sea sick, these are the only food you can keep down

Oil donkey; there are only a dozen oil wells on land in the UK. One is here and we have a nodding donkey oil pump

I think I might avoid both!!!!!!!! ( unless of course we take a boat trip in which case I WILL buy a dorset knob)

Mrs Bilbo is right....3 times??????????

hi wwrenwood,

as CW says, if you are interested in fossils, Lyme Regis is the only place to go - and you might meet the French Lieutenant's woman or a Jane Austin heroine at the same time!

OTOH, if you want a typical but refined seaside experience, I recommend Sidmouth - the scene of many an annhig family holiday and very picturesque, though rather quiet. you might like to fit in a nice game of pitch and putt, crazy golf, or even bowls and they have some good tennis courts. there is nice walk to the tiny village of Beer over the cliffs to the east of the town if you decide that you haven't had enough walking and the tea-shop there used to serve lovely raspberries and cream though that was quite a few years ago.

you can also call in at the donkey Sanctuary and meet some of their inmates [we foster two of them!]

any friends [or possibly enemies] of Giles Wemmbley Hogg, [aka Marcus Brigstock] may wish to make a pilgrimage to Budleigh Salterton, and near-by Bicton will pass a few hours.

in short, wrenwood, for a half-day trip, you are spoilt for choice.

hope this helps,

regards, ann

Know anything about Burton Bradstock? It is near Lyme Regis, it was noted in another thread as a neat village with a good pub for lunch and in a good area for walks and fossils.

Do most of the gateway towns have fossil shops where I can buy some for my neice?

I think your only place for fossil shops is Lyme Regis, Wren.

not sure what you mean by "gateway" towns.

I agree that Lyme Regis is the spot for finding or buying fossils.

BTW, David Attenborough was on radio this am talking about finding fossils during his childhood - in the limestone quarries of Leicestershire. which sadly is not very convenient for you, wrenwood.

The "Gateway Towns" have good tourist facilities and museums and visitor centers.

http://www.jurassiccoast.com/305/sec...-coast-31.html

Wren - The 'Jurassic Coast' name is an advertising slogan for the whole coastline from Swanage to Exmouth.

Of the so-called gateway towns, only Lyme Regis really fits the bill as a fossil centre.

Steve

I think Lyme Regis it is, with a stop for lunch at Three Horseshoes in Burton Bradstock.
Thanks for all the help!

gateway towns, eh....another useless tourist board invention. half of them on that list are tiny and gateways to nothing in particular.

hope you enjoy Lyme, Wrenwood.

have a great trip,

regards, ann