The original Two Moors Way spans 102 miles from Ivybridge on the southern boundary of Dartmoor National Park to Lynmouth on the North Devon coast in Exmoor National Park. If you wish to complete a Coast to Coast walk you can start at Wembury on the South Devon coast and follow the Erme-Plym trail to Ivybridge, adding around 15 miles. See the route charts for a detailed overview of the route.

The entire route is waymarked in each direction in most places, but it does cross wild moorland and remote countryside where the weather can change quickly. You should therefore carry the relevant maps and know how to read them – a compass is also strongly advisable.

Maps

The following maps cover the route and show it clearly:

Harvey Two Moors Way map – 1;40,000 Ivybridge to Lynmouth (please note doesn’t include the Erme–Plym extension between Wembury and Ivybridge).
Yellow Publications – Zizag Series – 1:16,000 Ivybridge to Down St Mary, and Down St Mary to Lynmouth.
Ordnance Survey Landranger 1:50,000 180, 181, 191, 202
Ordnance Survey Explorer 1:25,000 9, 20, 28, 113, 114, 127

Guidebook

Originally published in 2015, this is an invaluable guide to help you plan and complete the route, written by the Association’s very own Sue Viccars. Information about local history, archaeology, geology and wildlife is spread throughout the directions which include OS mapping. Published by Cicerone Press.

In February 2019 a new extended and revised edition was published by Cicerone, which includes a 1:25,000 map booklet, trek planner and accommodation listing. Sue re-walked the route in both directions (there’s a N–S summary at the end of each fully described S–N stage) for the new edition, which also includes low-level bad-weather alternative routes for some of the moorland stretches. Both editions are currently available to buy via this website: see the Shop page for details.

SOUTH DEVON

On leaving the coast at Wembury the route follows well-signed Rights of Way through the rolling fields and copses of the South Hams: a gentle unchallenging landscape. The stage ends at Ivybridge on the southern edge of Dartmoor.

DARTMOOR

Here you will encounter barren and lonely moorland, peppered with granite tors and evidence of Bronze Age activity. But Dartmoor also has a gentler side: sheltered wooded valleys and sparkling rivers, small stone-walled fields and attractive hamlets such as Drewsteignton where the route leaves the National Park.

MID DEVON

For many this is real Devon: little-visited and hilly country criss-crossed by a complex network of narrow hedged lanes, scattered farms and hamlets and remote churches.

EXMOOR

Folded sedimentary rocks give rise to smooth and rounded slopes on the moorland plateau, dissected by picturesque rivers in steep sided combes (valleys). This is a diverse landscape of small walled fields, historic farmsteads and pretty hamlets, and wild romantic moorlands leading to the coast. Towering sea cliffs make for a dramatic end to the walk at Lynmouth.