The Tidal Road by the River Avon

In the middle of that map it says ‘Tidal Road’ along the course of the River Avon. It doesn’t seem to show an actual road but there is one, most of the time, except when the tide is in. This post takes us along that little road.

There’s the road on the left and the River Avon on the right. Avon is a common river name for it is an old word that means ‘river’. One rather suspects that when the first mapmakers came around demanding to know the name of everything, locals told them it was a river, but used their word of Avon. I know of two River Avons that pass through my home county of Wiltshire. Shakespeare, famously, came from Stratford on Avon which is a third river so called. This one in Devon is a fourth and no doubt there are many more.

This is the downstream view – the way we were going.

Aha, there’s an interested looking person!

As you can see, this road was barely above water level. I have driven through water at that point in the past.

This was the point where the tidal road just became the road and moved away from the edge of the river and climbed steeply up hill.

There was a bit of firmer ground for walking on and over there is an old lime burning kiln, or the remains of it.

There are boats up the creek without a paddle between them!

A depth post on the side of the road. There are plenty of gulls out there enjoying the mud.

There’s a vast expanse of low tide mud.

That’s back upstream towards Aveton Gifford. There is a road between trees and mud.

There’s a footpath goes up those steps.

Interesting post work on the far bank.

Cars on the road.

Onwards, to Bigbury on Sea