Detour #290: The Dark Skies and Scenic Drives of Exmoor

Photo Genesis

One of Britain’s least visited national parks nominates itself as a great place for silent stargazing. And driving

Exmoor was among Britain’s first national parks, crowned in the early Fifties. But an arguably even greater honour arrived in 2011, when it was declared Europe’s first Dark Sky Reserve, ranking its stargazing prowess alongside areas of Namibia and New Zealand.

Eryri (aka Snowdonia) and Bannau Brycheiniog (the Brecon Beacons) in nearby Wales have since fallen under the same banner, but each of those boasts twice the area and double the tourists of Exmoor. It ranks as one of the least visited of all the UK’s national parks at two million folks a year, while just 10,000 locals inhabit its 430 square miles. You want the silent contemplation a vast sky of stars can bring? This might just be The British Isles’ prime spot for it.

Such low population density serves as the perfect excuse to look to the skies for signs of life. When you can see as far as the Andromeda galaxy, 2.5 million light years away, you can’t help but wonder what lies between there and Earth. Should you want your head scrambled a little less, Jupiter is easily spotted and a mere 380 million miles from Exmoor…

The 519m peak of Dunkery Beacon is an ideal place to go, local night sky tours running in darkness. For more ad-hoc plans – perhaps when the Aurora Borealis is swamping social media and you want to join the fun – then more easily accessed spots like Wimbleball Lake might just do the job too. The good news is that the roads leading to or from these locations are out of this world. Although probably best explored with the visibility of daylight…

Just 11 miles runs you from Dunkery to the village of Simonsbath along the twists and turns of the B3224 and B3223. From here you’ve a choice of three directions, but continuing on the B3223 for another six miles is your best bet if you want width and thus a brisk drive. You might even recognise this road from automotive magazine shoots gone by, its luscious scenery draped around the kind of twists that sternly test a car’s body control. It’s also just great fun.

Photo Shutterstock

At the end of the road lies Lynton and Lynmouth, gorgeous seaside spots with a chance for fresh fish and chips or even an outdoor theatre production. If the weather’s kind it feels like most of Exmoor’s tourists congregate here, leaving those moorland roads just for us.

With a full belly, you can then hook onto the eastbound A39 for a calmer cruise along the clifftops, the dramatic sea lashing the rocks to your left. Or simply turn back on yourself and enjoy a blast across the barren moors in reverse, each corner a new experience. While the relative narrowness of the roads (or extreme narrowness if you take a detour from the roads listed) nominate a lithe Caterham, Elise or MX-5 for this run – something that handles sharply, stops quickly and barely fills its lane – I did it in a Genesis GV70 Electrified. Yep, a broad-shouldered, battery-fed SUV.

Photo Genesis

All the better for slinking around those dark lanes in near silence, though, its instant and urgent torque a boon when the road opens up and its high vantage point useful for eyeing up passing places on some of the single-track access lanes. And with an added bonus for dark sky exploits: vehicle to load (V2L) capability. It can take your eyes up to an hour to truly adjust to darkness, which means a quick glance at the skies provides barely a fraction of the true scale of outer space. Even on a wonderfully clear night.

Sitting around for hours is no easy feat, so the opportunity to plug in a coffee machine and charge up some warming seat pads from the Genesis’ 77.4kWh battery is a real boon. A generator, but a silent one. This is, after all, one of Britain’s quietest national parks…

Words Stephen Dobie

Photo Shutterstock

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ROADBOOK

CLASS: Scenic Drive

NAME: DARK SKIES AND SCENIC DRIVES OF EXMOOR

ROUTE: Wheddon Cross to Lynmouth

COUNTRY: UK

Distance: 19 Miles

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