3 November 2020
A precious day off with a further but less onerous National lockdown projected to start in two days time, so I decided to spend the day on Dartmoor as a potential final taste of freedom. At that time it wasn’t clear what the regulations would be over the lockdown period. However the National Park website has been updated now and it is permissible to drive up to the moor to walk during the lockdown.
Back to last Tuesday – initially the weather forecast looked positive and I had expected a mainly dry day with perhaps an occasional shower. Sadly the reality turned out to be mainly showers with an occasional dry period, and a soggy walk over a waterlogged moor. However, my clothing and boots proved adequate and I stayed warm and mainly dry. Also it was a tremendous antidote providing a much needed escape from Covid19.
I drove over along the moorland roads, noting the occasional parked car and even a group of walkers getting out of a mini bus. I arrived at my planned start point, Two Bridges, at 09:00am. The small car park in the disused quarry was deserted but another car arrived as I was putting on all my waterproofs and setting up my new Satmap GPS bought following the demise of my Garmin. The new arrivals were out of their car and on the footpath almost immediately but they were dressed in T shirts and carrying umbrellas.
I caught up with them soon after passing Crockern Farm and arriving on the open moor. However they appeared to be continuing up the main path whereas I turned off to Crockern Tor. From here, I was delighted to see a fairly well trodden path along the gently ascending ridge and was soon approaching Littaford Tors, where there were cattle grazing on the east side of the hill. I saw a farmer on a quad bike. In fact this turned out to be the only person I saw on the moor all day. This walk certainly more than ticked all the boxes for following Covid19 social distancing rules. The unexpected path on the ground continued as I continued the gentle ascent to Higher White Tor.
Between Higher White Tor and Lower White Tor I saw a faint but full rainbow arcing across in front of me and caught on my camera in two halves. Sadly the camera shots are not as impressive as the real thing. However of course rain is never far from a rainbow and as I approached Lower White Tor I was faced with a squally hail shower, the ice balls stinging any bare flesh so I was walking sideways to protect my face from the onslaught. I was relieved to reach the tor where I was able to shelter until the worse of the shower had passed. Five tors bagged and I had only been out for an hour and a half. It wasn’t until around then that I realised that I had used most of the battery power on my Satmap and found the “screen off” button to conserve the power.
I could see a straightforward route along a grassy track to Rough Tor. However that was a tor I would be collecting on my return route. Instead I headed across open moorland to arrive at the ruin marked as Brown’s House and then made for Flat Tor across further soggy and pathless moorland. it was slow going and took about an hour altogether from Lower White Tor. Flat Tor turned out to be the most insignificant and small tor of the day.
My next objective was Fur Tor accessed across marshy, peaty, uneven and pathless terrain. Merrivale and Okehampton Ranges were open to the public, just Willsworthy several kilometres to the west having day firing. I headed across the Merrivale Range before reaching marker posts denoting the border with Okehampton Range. More by luck than design I passed an interesting stone post bearing a metal plaque “This stone marks a crossing through the peat which may be of use to hunting and cattlemen; the crossing was made by Frank Phillpotts who died in October 1909 and is kept up in his memory by his brother and son”. This must be on the line on the map marked as North West Passage. From this point I followed near the range boundary before seeing Fur Tor in the distance. At Fur Tor I sheltered out of the wind to eat lunch and admire the views, especially those to the north.
From Fur Tor, it took me almost two hours to cross the featureless, boggy and more or less pathless moor to Rough Tor, passing near the source of both the Tavy and the West Dart Rivers. I was relieved to see the metal container shed ahead of me at Rough Tor. At Rough Tor, there were views again across the West Dart Valley.
As it was getting late in the day, I considered heading due south along the edge of the Merrivale Range to Crow Tor. That would have left Devil’s Tor to return to another day and no other unvisited tor in the area (Conies Down Tor already visited). Hence I did not succumb to the temptation to shorten the route and I deviated as planned over to Devil’s Tor and the large standing stone nearby. Walking across, I saw some prominent stones but in fact these were not the tor and I travelled a rather circuitous route.
From Devil’s Tor , I descended into a small side valley (West Dart tributary) then ascended to the prominent Crow Tor. I crossed the same tributary again further south, to ascend to Lydford Tor. En route, I had to cross a fence and fell off a very slippery ladder stile crossing a fence. Fortunately, I landed on my feet and decided to follow the fence to a locked gate which was a safer crossing point. I was pleased to arrive at Lydford Tor, which I had been unable to reach back in mid August in the mist when my Garmin touch screen broke and my Silva compass went wrong. This time with working equipment and better visibility it was an easy objective.
The three Beardown Tors were easy to see and I arrived at them in dry sunlit conditions. The sun was low in the sky giving an impressive lighting effect. From a vantage point next to the flag pole I saw an interesting rainbow fragment on the opposite hill side.
From here it looked like an easy walk back to Two Bridges along a marked public right of way footpath so I wasn’t concerned that it was already 4.30pm and would be dark in 30 minutes or so. All was going well as I made my way down and I crossed a stile, clearly on the correct path.. However I deviated off the path to avoid a herd of cattle. This took valuable time, but I picked up the path again. Unfortunately in the twilight, I missed a path into a wood and continued south down the wood boundary. The ground was wet and uneven. I arrived at a field boundary stating “no public access”. I could hardly believe this as I could see the lights of the farm and knew that was where I needed to get to – but by another route. There was also a light visible at a house on the other side of the West Dart and an easily walked path – but no safe way to cross the river. I put on my headlight and began to retrace my steps to the turning that I had missed into the woods. It was very dark as I walked by the side of an irrigation channel through the wood on what fortunately turned out to be a prominent path. From Beardown Farm, the path was obvious and well signed near the farm so I soon reached the road. The old quarry, where my car was parked was very dark. It was raining again. It had taken me about an hour and a half to descend from Beardown Tors back to my car.
I drove home happy that it had been a productive although wet day – twelve more tors in the bag.
So now in lockdown, what prospects for the rest of the month? Two weeks free of work was originally earmarked to travel to Norway hunting the Northern Lights but then in pandemic times changed to a stay in a cottage in Norfolk. Even this is not possible now due to National lockdown. I was wondering what to do in this time in order to try to recover from the barrage of long workdays in the currently stressful working and living environment. I had thought that like last lockdown, driving to exercise would not be permitted. With news of being able to take unlimited exercise, I considered walking from home to Dartmoor and spending as many days walking and nights wild camping as I could manage accepting the likelihood of wind, rain and low temperatures before walking home. The nights, I reasoned, would be “reasonable breaks” taken in the course of virtually continuous exercise. I had hoped that restriction on wild camping in this style would not happen. Sadly wild camping is totally banned just like in the first lockdown. However the car parks on the moor are open and the less “green” option of driving somewhere to exercise is permitted. I had thought that it was more likely that I would be permitted to take exercise by walking from home and spend the nights away as long as I remained alone and only put my tent up in a different spot on normally permitted wild camp areas each night during the hours of darkness. Anyway I am not a politician or lawyer so clearly need to accept the situation as it stands and count myself fortunate that I will be able to salvage some recovery time. I will spend at least some of my leave driving to the moor and doing whole day walks – no doubt bagging some more tors along the way.
Where's Kathryn? 