COASTING ALONG
From a remote, sandstone ledge drops a bewildered man in a wetsuit. It’s taken an eternity for him to jump, and he plummets through the air with an expression somewhere between elation and terror. The rocks zooming past behind him are tens of millions of years old; the bay he’s arrowing into has witnessed visitors ranging from plesiosaurs to pirates. And, with the sun illuminating the red cliffs and ivied, coastal woodland, there comes an almighty splash as the October-cold sea rushes up to swallow him. For the man — who happens to be me — it’s an unutterable thrill.
Tom Devey, the guide who’s just patiently coaxed me into stepping off a 26ft precipice, gives a thumbs-up from the shore and gestures to a cove nearby. We’ve spent the past hour clambering over — and leaping from — the boulders and sea stacks of Devon’s southeastern coastline and it’s now time for a break.
“I’ve got hot chocolate,” he grins, patting his pack and leading us to a tiny beach walled off by giant shelves of rock. As he pours from the thermos, he points out the storage holes and camping spots favoured by generations of smugglers who used this shoreline to spirit illicit shipments of liquor and tobacco into the West Country. “On the subject,” he says, producing a hip flask. “Tot of rum in that?”
On Devon’s southeast coast, the history is spread as thickly as clotted cream. I’m here to discover more about the area’s
