Red Cliffs

Last summer we visited Torbay, the English Riviera. While there we went to Babbacombe and took the old Victorian Railway down the cliff face to the sandy beach of Babbacombe Bay. The railway was a wonderful experience. It is a pair of Victorian carriages joined by a cable such that when one is at the bottom, the other is at the top. The contraption is water powered and simply by filling tanks in the top carriage with water, while emptying those of the bottom carriage, one goes down as the other comes up.

When down on the beach we hired a couple of deckchairs and tucked into the picnic we had taken with us. The sand was soft, the sun was hot, the sky was blue and the sea was calm. Looking across the bay the tall, bright red sandstone cliffs of Babbacombe stood proud over the landscape, and the distant shore was littered with white houses bearing terracotta coloured roofs making it plain to see why the region is known as the English Rivierra.