Heddon Mouth walk and pub

Heddon valley walk is a lovely trail and ideal for dogs, it follows the river all the way to the where it joins the sea. The walk is relatively easy and took us about 1.5hrs there and back again. The car park and shop at the start of the trail is National Trust owned and they also have off-road mobility scooters available to hire for anyone with mobility difficulties. The walk is well worth the beautiful views at the end of the trail when you reach Heddon Mouth, a stoney cove beach. The dog loved having a run on the beach and splashing in and out of the river along the walk. Unfortunately the pub at the start of the trail was closed on our visit, but it looked fantastic, it has a huge garden seating area overlooking the river.

Watersmeet Trail

This walk starts in Lynmouth and is well sign posted throughout. It takes you on a walk alongside the East Lyn River. There is a National Trust cafe at the end with a nice outdoor seating area overlooking the river. The total walk there and back to Lynmouth took us about 2.5hrs, which included a few stops along the way to let the dog have a swim.

Lovely Sandy beach with dunes

Huge Sandy beach, dogs allowed all year round. Buffy the Labrador loved playing fetch with her ball on this beach.

Quiet long stretch of beach

This was great for our dog, plenty of sandy stretches for running around. It was also very quiet with mostly just dog walkers on it. Plenty of driftwood around for stick throwing. Just beware the sinking mud!

Huge sandy beach

Huge stretch of sandy beach, great for dogs to run around. The only thing I didn’t like about this beach was that cars actually parked on it, there is no car park. Cars would be driving along the top end of the beach which sometimes made us anxious with Buffy who is still a puppy.

Great food and dog walk with lakes

We initially parked up at the Harwick Inn for lunch. It has a very large garden both out front and at the back. Lots of other dog owners around and plenty of doggy water bowls. The food was nice, definitely recommend the steak pie, they also have their own carvery roast!

On the way to the Harwick Inn we passed a car park for Harwick Park. It was a really hot day so we drove back there to jump out for a dog walk. Lots of different walking routes clearly signposted, including a woodland walk and walks around two large lakes. Buffy loves swimming so it was difficult to stop her from jumping in the lake, but I’m not sure how dog friendly the lakes are as there were fisherman also camped up in the area. Overall a really good lunch stop very close to the M1.

Nice little stop

The postcode took us to slightly the wrong place, you need to turn off at St Judith’s Lane and just at the of the road is a small car park and you can see the field. We couldn’t find the large woodland walk described here, but made use of the large field there to throw a frisbee around for a bit. It was nicely kept and relatively quiet. Did the job for a short stop enroute.

Doggy lake swim

Really big site, it was incredibly popular with families when we went there as there is a a big children’s playground with water fountains. The car park was packed. Past the children’s play area is a huge lake with a walking path around it, the dog enjoyed a swim in the lake. We only stopped for a short while but I noticed a few signs around directing you to dog walking routes through the woods which looked nice. Overall a very nice stop just a shame it was so packed!

Nothing special!

The field was difficult to find based on the description in this listing - especially without access to the premium part of this site!

We did find what I assume must be the open space referred to but it had a lot of rubble which we had to clamber over to access. The field had a section of tall grass which the dog loved, and the rest was mainly dry dirt. We were able to throw a ball around for the dog in this area off lead. Not worth stopping here specially. There was a large patch of grass behind the main services on the left hand side where many people were walking dogs, which is fine for a quick walk and toilet.

DwD Team comment: Premium membership would have given you directions to the woods and stream here. By chance you've just hit 100 Treat Points so we're giving you a FREE Premium membership so you won't need to guess at the directions!