Tim & Gerri's Wild Ride
Email & Facebook Gerri:
  • Home
  • Worldwide Travel
    • Eastern Europe 2022 >
      • Eastern Europe 2022 Blog Summary
      • Eastern Europe 2022 Packing List
    • Narrowboat Holiday 2022 >
      • Narrowboat 2022 Blog
      • Narrowboat 2022 Packing List
    • Ireland & UK 2019 >
      • Ireland & UK Itineray
      • Ireland & UK Blog
      • Ireland & UK Blog Summary
      • Ireland & UK Packing List
    • France 2018 >
      • France Itinerary
      • France 2018 Blog
      • Blog Summary
    • European Tour 2017 >
      • European Vacation Blog
      • Blog Summary
    • Southeast Asia 2014-15 >
      • Southeast Asia Blog
      • Packing List
      • Blog Summary
    • Afghanistan 2011-12
  • United States Travel
    • Great Lakes Sail 2020 >
      • Great Lakes Sail 2020 Blog
      • Blog Summary
    • Trans-America Bicycle Ride >
      • Trans-America Bicycle Ride Blog
      • Blog Summary
      • Our Team
      • Equipment
      • Breweries Along Route
    • Pacific Crest Trail >
      • Pacific Crest Trail 2016 >
        • What is the PCT? - 2016
        • Why Hike the PCT? - 2016
        • Gear - 2016
        • Itinerary - 2016
        • Blog - 2016
        • PCT Blog Summary - 2016
        • Where are we now? - 2016
      • Pacific Crest Trail 2014 >
        • What is the PCT?
        • Why Hike the PCT?
        • Gear
        • Food
        • Itinerary
        • PCT Blog
        • Blog Summary
        • Where are we now?
    • Motorcycle Ride 2014 >
      • Motorcycle Blog
  • Brewery Visits
    • 2022 Breweries
    • 2021 Breweries
    • 2020 Breweries
    • 2019 Breweries
    • 2018 Breweries
    • 2017 Breweries
    • 2016 Breweries
    • 2015 Breweries
    • 2014 Breweries
    • 2013 Breweries
    • 2012 Breweries
    • 2011 Breweries
    • 2010 Breweries
    • 2009 Breweries
    • 2008 Breweries
    • 2007 Breweries
    • 2006 Breweries
    • 2005 Breweries
    • 2004 Breweries
    • 2003 Breweries
    • 2002 Breweries

Dartmoor National Park

11/19/2019

0 Comments

 
Tuesday, 19 November 2019
Today we are doing "Dartmoor Driving Tour" in Rick Steves' England guidebook.  FIrst stop is in an area called "The Moors".  A moor is land with a relative lack of vegetation except for high grasses and heather.  This area has long views of undulating expanses of open land without trees, but is littered with prehistoric stone monuments.

Our first stop is to hike up to a stone monument called "Grimspound."  We parked on the side of the road and hiked up a hill to the monument.  Here are some nice "view" photos:
Picture
Picture
Picture
Below us is Grimspound (see the circle of rocks):
Picture
Gruimspond dates from 2000 BCE and is a late-Bronze Age fortress used as a settlement for 800 years.  The inner stone circles, like the one I am sitting on below, would have been stone huts.
Picture
Picture
We returned to the car to continue the driving tour.  We passed these cool cows on the side of the road along with a celtic cross.  These celtic crosses are found all along the road and marked the way for villagers to cross the moor, often for funeral processions.
Picture
Picture
Further down the road is the village of Postbridge, and has a very cool and very old bridge called a clapper bridge that dates back to the Middle Ages.
Picture
Clapper Bridge
It was about noon and we were hungry so we stopped in the next town, Widecombe-in-the-Moor.  This was a very small town with a cute church.  Luckily there was a gift shop that sold pasties.
Picture
Eating a pastie in Widecombe.
Picture
Church of St. Pancras.
This image of many people on the back of a gray mare appears all over town.  Notice the city sign above as well.  The image comes from a popular folk song called Widecombe Fair about a a man called Tom Pearce, whose horse dies after someone borrows it to travel the the fair in Widecombe with his friends, making 8 people aboard this poor mare...no wonder it died.
Picture
Picture
Back to the car with the next stop being Haytor, one of many bare granite peaks that poke out of the moor landscape.  While climbing up to it, I located a geocache.  Tim says that I am way to motivated to get to these hidden canisters.
Picture
After about 15 minute hike up hill, we came to the granite peaks.  Wait...this doesn't match the photo in the guide book!  Oops...wrong granite peaks.  These wound up being called Saddle Tor.
Picture
Back to the car, and around the next bend we saw Haytor.
Picture
Less than a 10 minute walk up the hill and we arrive:
Picture
Haytor
What a great view from up here.
Picture
Picture
Back on the road to the last stop on our driving tour, Hound Tor. Named Hound Tor because the rocks look resemble heads of dogs.  This clump of rocks are supposedly the inspiration for the Sherlock Holmes story "The Hound of Baskervilles."

We were supposed to climb up these rocks, but it was past 2:30 PM and we want to get back to our AirBnB and tour the town of Chagford, so we stopped in the parking lot, took a photo, and headed back to Chagford.
Picture
Hound Tor
We returned to Chagford, parked the car, walked to the AirBnB, and then headed out for our town walk.  There was a brochure in the AirBnB with a Chagford walking tour.  It was already 4 PM, so we didn't have much daylight left, but off we went.
Picture
Interesting lawn art
Picture
Cute alleyway
We must have stood here for 10 minutes watching them replace the thatch roof on this building.  It was very interesting to watch them work.
Picture
Here is St. Michael the Archangel's Church built in the 1400's.
Picture
Picture
We exited the church at 4:45 PM and just like that, it is dark.
Picture
We returned to the AirBnB, had bread, cheese, and jam in front of the fireplace.  Tomorrow we head to Penzance, a 5.5 hour drive, so we want to get an early start.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Ireland & UK Home
    Blog summary

    Archives

    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.