Short answer: Trams run every twenty minutes with hop-on hop-off day tickets, up the Axe valley between Seaton and Colyton. Start at the Colyton end — parking is free there and chargeable on the seafront. Dogs are £2 each way. The wetlands stop is free to get off at.
This is the piece of local knowledge that saves money. Parking at the Colyton terminus is free; parking on the Seaton seafront is not. There is also a good café at the Colyton end with proper scones. Starting at the inland end costs you nothing and gives you the valley on the way down rather than on the way back.
Day tickets are hop-on hop-off, which is what makes the tramway worth it. It is not a single round trip — you can get off at the wetlands, spend an hour, and pick up the next tram. With trams every twenty minutes you are never waiting long.
£2 each way. Worth knowing before you arrive with a dog and no change, and worth factoring in if there are two of them.
Narrow-gauge and open-top, some of them a century old, running on the trackbed of the old railway line up the Axe valley. The open top is the point on a clear day and a liability in horizontal rain, so check the forecast — there are enclosed vehicles but you do not get to choose.
Riverside Depot holds the fleet and runs tours on heritage days, which is the one for anyone genuinely interested rather than just along for the ride. There is a picnic spot by the Axe alongside it.
Treat it as transport rather than a ride. It links the town, a free nature reserve and a village with a café, along a valley you cannot easily see any other way. That is a day out, not a twenty-minute novelty.
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