The start of the walk - lunch was at the pimple on the horizon just to the right of centre
5th June
With legs still creaking slighly from Monday's walk, we headed off for an early bus to Ivybridge for a walk on the southern edge of Dartmoor. This seemed to be the most accessible point for us from Dartmouth using public transport, but still involved two buses and nearly one and a half hours traveling each way.
Arriving at Ivybridge we succumbed to the powers of advertising at a Tesco local for 3 for 2 pastries - well it was now a while since breakfast and we did need some extra energy for our walk! Leaving the river behind, the walk stared by heading up a short (but steep) section of road before reaching a sign for the edge of Dartmoor National Park. Then a short bit of lane before turning off onto track that is the Two Moors Way. Up the stony track with high banks on either side to start with so we couldn't see much of the view. Though the sides of the track were carpeted with bluebells to make up for the lack of view. Through a gate and we were now in open countryside at the bottom of a grassy slope heading up to the moors and a perfect place for eating our pastries.
Dartmoor National Park
We cut across the hill, passing shaggy haired cows until joining the stone track that is a former railway that used to serve china clay works further into the moors. The track wound along the contours of the hills and was straight forward to follow. We passed more cows, some sheep and Dartmoor ponies down at the bottom of the hill.
A man on a mountain bike who I reckoned was in his late 60's stopped by us for a rest and a quick chat. He said he used to be able to cycle up without stopping but had to have a rest now - it was still very impressive to have got to where he was.
There is lots of evidence of prehistoric settlement in this area, although you have to be a good spotter to see the objects. Stone rows were visible along our route, the occasional stone still standing tall but many had disappeared, either sunk into the peat, grown over or pilfered away.
A section of stone row
We arrived at Sharp Tor, our turning round point, much quicker than expected, and headed off the track towards the rocky outcrop. We found a perfect lunch stop tucked behind the rocks out of the wind with a cracking view of the river Erme winding it's way from the moors down to the sea. Bliss.
Lunch stop
Unfortunately time marched on very quickly and it was soon time to turn back if we didn't want to miss our bus. We backtracked along the Two Moors Way a little and had a bit of a problem identifying the bridleway that would take us down to Harford; there are no signposts and the tracks can be hard to spot being just slighly trampled versions of the surrounding moorland.
Conquering our first tor
Off the moors and onto the lanes through Harford, crossing the the river Erme at Harford Bridge before a footpath led us back down to the banks of the Erme. The river burbled it's way down the valley, looking quite benign. However, the large trees that had fallen across the river where the river banks had been washed away, told of fiercer flows in the recent past. The first section of river path was narrow with sections where we had to clamber over tree roots and side streams. As the path opened out into a wide, easy track, the river did the opposite as it surged and twisted over rocks, through gullies and narrows. We passed a few deep pools that looked inviting to swim in on a hot summers day.
We didn't really have time to linger if we wanted to get the bus, which is a shame as it was a very scenic river to walk along. We made it back to the bus stoo with 10 minutes to spare (although the bus was then 15 minutes late!).
We saw only 4 other people whilst out on the moors; 2 on bikes and 2 walkers way ahead of us. The walk was about 10 miles and gave us a bit of everything Dartmoor has to offer: wide open moorland, a bit of history, rugged tors and the wooded river valley. And some Dartmoor ponies! The weather was sunny and warm, with a cooling breeze up on the tops. Couldn't have asked for more - except for buses that run later in the evening!
Baaaaaaaah!