Dartmoor 365

We parked the car at the car park on the road to Manaton, just before the Haytor visitor centre.  We walked on the road looking for the path with the bound stones, but could not find it.  We turned around and took a path near the car park, walking in the right directions.Unfortunately the GPS was not working so we were not sure exactly where we were.  We did manage to find one stone.  Writing on one side was very clear, but on the other side it was indistinct. We continued walking until we were nearly at the cairn, but as we had not found any others we turned round and went back to the car.  After a pasty lunch we headed out on the other side of the road.  This was more successful and we found 4 of the stones. Prince of Wales Stone Prince Albert Stone  It was a misty day therefore the views, which should have been far reaching were very subdued.  However, the yellow gorse brightened up the scene.

We only had a couple of hours to walk on Dartmoor today so we planned to follow the walk around Black Tor in "One hour stroll on Dartmoor" by John Hayward.  We parked the car in the lay by at the foot of the Tor and walked up.  The Logan Stone was impressive. From one side it looked as if the top stones were balancing very precariously on the bottom stone. As we walked down to the river we came upon a wotsit, and saw another one beside the river. Wotsits are covers placed over boreholes that were dug when they were looking for a reservoir site. The ground was still very wet in places and there was a lot of water coming down the river making it very pretty.  There was several smaller falls before we came to the main Black Tor Falls. The blowing  house was very clear to see.  We walked on down the river, but could not see how to cross the river further down, so we turned back and walked along Hart Tor Brook which also had water rushing ...

Last year we tried to find Sett Makers Bankers on the slopes of the Staple Tors, but we not see any.  I did more research this time, and as we walked diagonally up the tor we came to several. We continued to walk to the top of Great Staple Tor where the views were breathtaking.  The rock formations were incredible. From Great Staple Tor we walked to Cox Tor.  There was a pond in the valley, but the ground was not too wet.  As we walked between the tors we could clearly see the tiny hillocks. From Cox Tor we walked down to the large car park then along the road to the smaller car park where we had left our car.  After a lunch of pasties we crossed the road and walked towards Vixen Tor.  We had to pick our way through the mire, but managed to do so without getting our feet too wet.  When we reached the wall surrounding this tor we admired it from a distance.  It is such a pity that there is no public ac...

We drove to the car park near Bellever Bridge.  As we walked up the bridlepath  we could look back over the East Dart as it meandered around.  As it was early in the morning there were not the usually crowds at the side of the river. We continued until we came to Laughter Hole House.  We had to climb up the hill to skirt this property, then took the path down to the river at the other side of it. This brought us to Winford Steps. We rretuned up the hill to Laughter Hole Farm, that is not a nature reserve.  We walked through this and back to Bellever Bridge on a higher bridle path. After lunch we walked in the opposite direction from the car park and past the Youth Hostel .  Just as we were approaching the forest we saw a small deer.  He ran into the trees and although I scanned the area as I walked I did not see him again.  We gradually climbed up until we came to a rough path that led through heather to Bellever Tor.  Th...

We drove through Peter Tavy then up a single track road to a small car park.  From there we walked along the bridleway, which was a steep hill to begin with.  The path was quite good, although occasionally we had to walk through streams as the water drained off the moor.  There were some pools of water and the edges of the of the path were squishy.  However, this was much better than most of the moor at the moment.  As we walked along we saw one Scottish Blackface that JH illustrates on this page of Dartmoor 365.  He kindly posed for me on the top of a wall. After about half an hour we reached Stephen's Grave.  It was very easy to spot as we walked along the bridlepath. We continued walking along the path and it was not until we nearly reached The Langstone that the path petered out and it became very wet.  We were able to get close to the The Langstone, but it was very boggy close to it, so we admired it from a short distance. ...

Finally we had a sunny day so we drove to Princetown and walked along the cycle path to Swell Tor Quarry.  We were looking for the leftovers.  We had been out once before and not found them, but we realised the grid reference in 365 book was incorrect.  We were sure we would locate them today! The path off the cycle path towards Swell Tor was very boggy but we were able to pick our way around the quarry.  We found some old mine buildings, remains from the quarry and the wooden sidings, but not the corbels. Railway sleepers Railway sleeper The ground was so wet I saw frog spawn on the ground.  I wondered if it had been washed from a pond or just layed there.