Mortehoe Car Park, Mortehoe, EX34 7ET
Morte Point, the rugged headland at the northern tip of Morte Bay, is one of the finest coastal stargazing locations in North Devon, combining genuine darkness, a 270-degree open horizon and a dramatic natural setting that makes it one of those places that feels truly awe-inspiring at night. Away from the village lights of Mortehoe and the main road, the headland offers some of the darkest skies available within a short walk of Woolacombe, and on a clear night the quality of what you can see above you is quite remarkable.
The walk out to Morte Point from Mortehoe car park takes around twenty minutes along the South West Coast Path, and it is well worth doing this walk even on a moonlit night simply for the atmosphere of moving through the coastal landscape in the dark. The sound of the sea breaking on the rocks below, the outline of the headland against the star-filled sky and the occasional flash of the Bull Point Lighthouse in the distance all combine to create an experience that is quietly unforgettable.
Once on the headland itself, find a comfortable spot away from any ambient light and allow your eyes at least fifteen to twenty minutes to fully adapt to the darkness. This dark adaptation process is crucial to being able to see the faintest objects in the sky, and the improvement in what becomes visible over those first twenty minutes is often dramatic and surprising to those who have not experienced it before.
The lack of light pollution from the ocean horizon to the west and south-west means that stars can be seen all the way down to the horizon in those directions, giving you access to constellations and bright stars that remain hidden when you are stargazing from a location with buildings or landscape features obscuring the low sky.
Autumn and winter are the best seasons, with the sky at its darkest longest and the Milky Way galaxy core visible high in the south-west on the clearest nights.
