The beginning of our holiday to Cornwall and Devon included a stop in Exeter for lunch and then, since we were so close to Dawlish, I decided to take a diversion down there. I had seen numerous pictures of Dawlish over the years with waves crashing against the wall and spray covering passing trains. Seemed a no-brainer to check it out – admittedly on a rather calmer day. We parked up along the seafront and took one of the footbridges over the tracks to the walkway along the shore. This whole area had a significant rebuild in recent years as a result of some storm damage. The tide was out and people were down walking on the beach.

I was a little surprised to find that, beyond the station, the fencing ended and there was quite a drop off the edge of the path down to the beach. I guess people just take care. I was trying to work out what some of the shapes of concrete were on the beach. At first, I thought they might be the remains of previous structures but, after looking at them further, I decided that they were sewer drainage pipes. If anyone knows differently, please let me know.

After walking for a while, we backtracked at went under the tracks at the station. Time to grab an ice cream because were were on holiday. Then we sat on a bench along the river as it comes into the shore. Apparently, Dawlish has an association with black swans and there were several down in the river. Not sure of the story on that one. It was only a brief stop, but it was nice to see this place for myself after all of these years.