South West holiday - the Tors

I ad a little lie in this morning while the others showered, but I still managed to be on the road by 9am.  I drove through the picturesque little village of Widdecombe-in-the-Moor, slowing down for ponies on the verges and cattle being herded down the road by a farmer on a quadbike.

Breakfast

The foal was a bit nervous of me, but after skittering around a bit
her mother called her over and she settled down to feed.

Then up onto the moors in the early September sunlight.  I was near Haytor, one of the big famous tors in this part of Dartmoor, and it's easy to see why.  It's huge and iconic, with a vertical side popular with climbers and a less steep way of scrambling up from the back.  There's a visitor centre a short walk down the hill that makes your walk up a short one, but where's the fun in that?  I left the car over at Saddle Tor instead, and wandered past Rippon Tor, across to Haytor and the rocks beyond.

Had fun rooting around, skirting a more agitated group of ponies, and then passing some cattle which ignored me completely, even though they had calves with them.  I think this trip is going some way to addressing my fear of charging bovines!  It's just such a fun place to play.  Things to climb and look under, a new view round every boulder, and some amazing rock formations. I keep thinking that the tors are sort of sat on top of the hills somewhere, like cairns to mark the high points, and forgetting that in fact they are only the exposed heights of the hills, surrounding soil ripped away by wind and ice and rain.  Even the mighty Rippon Tor is just the tip of a vast granite iceberg.

View from Haytor, looking south.  That silver line on the horizon is the mouth of the river Teign, where it runs into the sea.

A well-balanced cairn

Sculptures

Made a wide loop back, over to Bonehills and followed the line of tors to Chiswell (which had probably one of my favoruite views of the day) and Honeybags.  My end goal was Hound Tor, which you can see across the valley, but it looked far enough away that I had to talk myself into starting.  Once I was moving and there were things to see and problems to solve, I forgot I'd been reticent.

After what looked like a gate turned out not the be a gate, I had to double back on myself and handrail a drystone wall back to the heath.  The knowledge of bog plants I'd been given two days earlier suddenly came very much in useful!  I saw the brown-husked grass long before I got to it.  It grows where there's been wet for a long time, whereas the gorse and heather like drier soil.  There was such a clear end of one kind of plant and the start of the other, like countries on a map, that it was easy to pick a way round.

Added a rock to this balancing art I found.  And look- there's a shield bug on it!

Gorse and heather, heather and gorse.  Both in flower, and so beautiful together.
If in doubt between long brown grass and this stuff, always pick the heather

After that it was over the heath (more ponies, watching me suspiciously), across the road, through two fields, and over to Hound Tor.  This tor is absolutely massive, like a stone city, and I think I prefer it to Haytor just because of it's shapes and nooks; it's great to clamber on!  It's constructed of two huge outcrops with a channels carved between them, through which the wind rushes. There was a group of outdoor activity kids wearing hard hats, and some of them (with help) were allowed to climb to the very top - too scary for me!  I watched them while I ate my lunch, wedged between two rocks out of the wind, and then walked back to Bonehills and the car.  It wasn't as far as it had initially appeared (or it was, but I did it) however I had been so reluctant to take it on that I'm really proud of myself for finishing it - and for starting.

Approaching Hound Tor from the South West

Entering the wind tunnel of Hound Tor

Brave kids!

Some beautiful Sheep's Bit Scabious growing in the hedge

After 6 hours of happily ambling about, I decided that was enough trekking for one day.  I stopped to buy some postcards then went down to see Buckfast Abbey at Buckfastleigh.  There's been an abbey here since 1018 but this building is new, built between 1907 and 1938, so the whole things looks very smart and neat and colourful.  It seems almost odd, until you remember that all the abbeys that are old now must have looked like that when they were new.  In that sense this is a much more accurate form of time travel.

I walked round slowly, and lit a candle t say thank you for a good stay.  I've loved being here - the simplicity of it, just getting up to walk each day, of the space and the blessed quiet, the not being aware of what I look like - only what my body is doing, what it feels and senses.  I come home in the evenings tired but in an almost drugged state of contented pleasure.  I ache but not painfully, just with limbs well used.  I've been eating so little compared to what I would at home that Mum might be concerned (and I do need some veg!) but actually I've not been hungry.  I've eaten lunch because it's lunchtime, not because I'm starving, and in the evenings a bowl of pasta, soup, or noodles seems enough.  I go to bed at 10.30pm and read in the evenings when I'm not chatting with the other guests.  I'm so happy here.  I needed this.

Thinking back on this sudden contentment, it's interesting because it suggests that state of mind is at least partly a force of habit.  I've become so used to feeling sad that I've been defaulting to sadness, like an ongoing spiral.  However that also suggests than with a bit of careful management, an upward spiral is also possible, and I can create the conditions for it.  I think I did know this once, but sometimes you need a fellow traveller/sports psychiatrist to explain this to you in an isolated youth hostel before it makes any sense.

Had a snack and reclined on the bench outside the abbey cafe, overlooked by a wide but young beech tree (you know a beech in summer by it's classic rounded leaf shape, but with crinkle-cut edges).  It was raining again, and I lay for over half a hour just listening to the rain fall on the leaves and the canopy above me.  It must have looked a bit odd, but nobody stopped me (thanks, Sybil Leek!) and it was very meditative, like listening to white noise.  And then I realised that was silly - the reason white noise works is because it imitates the rain.

I popped into Buckfastleigh post office to take out some spare cash (finally!)  Not that I've needed any round here.  I've only bought odd bits of food, and all of the attractions I'm interested in are free!  I've had £7 cash in my purse for the past four days and not been worried at all.

Went back to the hostel for dinner and packing before I leave tomorrow, and ended up in two long conversations.  Trish, who is waiting for the keys to her new house told me about her life as a carer, both for her family and professionally.  It's strange the paths people's lives take and where the turns are - both the ones we make and the way the road swings.  Then that night I talked with a man named Jonathon, who is doing a tour by motorbike to talk with people about UK politics and how small local groups might take more effective action than the usual London-based protest on a weekday. Although we were just shooting the breeze we had a few ideas and I'm interested to see how his tour develops.


Bed + Board: £15
Food: £5 snack
Gifts: £6
Fuel for the journey home: £44