The Cart Road continues for a short way as a concrete ledge narrower than before. Against the wall stand fifty wooden boxes: beach huts, with their doors open and their renters disposed in front of them on deck chairs.
x        (In January 2011, a crane on the upper way, working on the new shelters, toppled off, crushing three huts. Nobody was injured.)
        But as soon as you have threaded your way past these, the Cart Road ends: it slopes down a ramp to the beach. And the tide happens to be in, lapping (or on rough days smashing) against the high wall. The Cobb is near but you can't reach it this way, and have to go back.
        This scene is set in the fairly recent past. A decision was taken in 2003 to extend the Cart Road along to the Cobb. Voices of anxiety were raised that it would become a traffic thoroughfare, depriving Lyme of its distinctive car-free sea front. Bur assurances were given that the only traffic allowed would be emergency vehicles.
        The Cart Road Extension was built; dipping to a lower level, and curving leftward over what was a part of the beach so as to pass to the left of the buildings of the Cobb Village ahead, it is a wide way for strollers, made of sandy-coloured concrete and looking almost like an extension of the sandy beach beside it. And the beach huts along the eastern part became painted with gay pastel colours. But you happen to be in a timekink of the maze where this passage is still blocked off, so all you can do is go back.