Good roads from Swindon to Lee (Woolacombe)

[mtv dave]

Hi,

I'm driving back through the region in an Elise next Friday and wanted to know of any roads people would recommend avoiding, or going on for this leg of my journey.

I expect the M4->M5 stint may be dropped in favour of a cross country route, but when I lived in Wiltshire, trying to get across to the M5 J27 from Devizes way was a real pain as you can't avoid the towns and I think they will be choc fully on the BH Friday

Cheers for any tips,

Dave

[mtv dave]

Okey, I'll just have to find some myself then

[Neil_Bolton]

mtv dave said:

Okey, I'll just have to find some myself then

My advice would be to avoid the South West during BH weekends.

No amount of twiddling about will avoid the hellish traffic.

You have A303 or M5 - you choose.

[tog]

Sorry, didn't see this before. I live near Swindon, and my favourite route down to the west country is Marlborough - A4/A361 to Devizes - A360 to Tilshead - unclassified to Chitterne - B390 to join A36 near Heytesbury - B3095 through Sutton Veny and the Deverills to Mere - then join the A303. (But that might take you too far south, depends on how much time you have.) Then I don't really know the area between there and Taunton. Once past Taunton, the B3224 across Exmoor is a great road. I've only been along it once, as far as Exford and back, but I remember lots of decent straights linked by nice corners. Slightly cooked the Bitter's brakes eventually, but you should be fine in the Elise!

Whatever route you go, you definitely want to avoid the A39 from Bridgewater to Watchet. I have to go to Watchet quite often, and although I ususally go M4/M5 to the north Devon coast, the A39 is very tedious - narrow and twisty, but lots of traffic and few decent overtaking spots.

HTH, have a good drive!

[mechsympathy]

mtv dave said:

Elise

There's your error Get a bike.



HTH

[k50 del]

tog said:

Sorry, didn't see this before. I live near Swindon, and my favourite route down to the west country is Marlborough - A4/A361 to Devizes - A360 to Tilshead - unclassified to Chitterne - B390 to join A36 near Heytesbury - B3095 through Sutton Veny and the Deverills to Mere - then join the A303. (But that might take you too far south, depends on how much time you have.) Then I don't really know the area between there and Taunton. Once past Taunton, the B3224 across Exmoor is a great road. I've only been along it once, as far as Exford and back, but I remember lots of decent straights linked by nice corners. Slightly cooked the Bitter's brakes eventually, but you should be fine in the Elise!

Whatever route you go, you definitely want to avoid the A39 from Bridgewater to Watchet. I have to go to Watchet quite often, and although I ususally go M4/M5 to the north Devon coast, the A39 is very tedious - narrow and twisty, but lots of traffic and few decent overtaking spots.


HTH, have a good drive!

Missed this post befoer as well, you've duplicated the entire route that I would / do take so I'll just say that they are some fab roads, especially in an elise on a sunny afternoon.

Have fun