Dartmoor 1

Earlier in the year I once again took a break on Dartmoor.

Its difficult to call it a holiday as I usually return half a stone lighter, a good deal fitter, and require several days rest and recuperation to recover from the break.

So it is more a break from routine than a holiday, but as I have gone for many years now, its almost become a routine in itself.  It is always a joy though (looking back).

Over the next little while a series of blogs will catalogue and explore this venture, partly as a mechanism to ready myself for the next "holiday" which weather/economics permitting will be end of September time.

I avoid claims that returning to Dartmoor amounts to repetition, at least to myself, by exploring different areas of Dartmoor and different facets of it while there.

This time it was the area around Ivybridge and Princetown with special interest in mining activity.  Previous visits have been to more interested in prehistory around Tavistock region of the moor.

There is a balancing act to this repetition avoidance thing.  To broad a definition of a subject and everything is repetition, walking for days on end is repetition perfected.  Too sub-divide too much, and nothing is repetition because each step has a unique nature about it.  So like everything a sane balance has to be struck.  At what point you consider you have attained sanity will determine exactly how sane others will judge you.

Modern society with all its "freedoms" seems to be ever stricter concerning the amount of personal leeway it gives its citizens.  Perhaps the way in which we live our internalised lives is freer than it was, or it might not be, but there does seem to be a march towards outward uniformity in which we all have to be wearing the right sort of shellsuits to not be stared at.  This weeks fashion is not next weeks.

I am drifting off course, its another topic for another day.

Dartmoor fills my imagination and exerts and almost tidal force upon me.  Earliest impression of the place being Hound of the Baskervilles.  It’s a place as easy to picture in black and white as easy as colour thanks to the movies.

On a short walk a person can pretty much navigate through human history, or at least from the point at which we started altering our environment.  Rude huts, carefully constructed graves, complex “ceremonial” sites, vast land management schemes from pagan past vie for attention with Christian crosses and the broken remains of considerable industry.

The man made s tuff pails to what nature has sculpted over the millennia.  Bleak, bleak moor where the unwary can still feel the thrill of fear, will the Dartmoor mist roll in?  Will you end up neck deep in a bog?  Towering impossibly balanced granite tors, seemingly timeless, but you know time has worn them, and continues to do so.  No man made construction is so daring.

Dartmoor needs a dog, not exactly a fiery eyed hell hound but a Yorkshire Terrier.  He has a low carbon footprint and is ecologically sound.  If needed 20miles a day, every day is within his scope.  It’s not going to be needed, because 20 Dartmoor miles is outside of my scope.  This is a place I wander, inspect, consider, it’s not an A to B route march.

Dog Number Two was going solo.  Dog Number One having got to an age when pipe and slippers was more his thing.  Dog Number Three was still to young to go.

Dog 1 had taught Dog 2 everything he could in a previous trip to Dartmoor, time to apply the lessons.

This time, wild camping was also on the agenda, again something new.  Getting closer to the moor itself (and saving a few quid in the process, it never hurts)

There were a number of concerns with regard this.
The first being will the dog escape the bivvy bag at night.  Tests at home had been conducted and the hound did not mind sleeping in the bag but there had been occasion to wake up early in the morning on a cold floor to find the dog had got out and taken the more comfortable option of the sofa.

The second more mundane, could I park the car safe and sound.

The third, I should have taken more consideration off, the sheer damn weight of the rucksack.

Weeks before returning to Dartmoor I began getting into moor shape.   I am relatively fit but my life is lived on a flat plain, my legs are simply not used to the ups and downs of an undulating existence.  The first few days are a culture shock and so getting into shape is about reducing the shock to a minimum.  I was also aware everything I required was going to be on my back.  Previous visits had been with daybag which had eventually been  reduced to a packet of peanuts and a couple of litres of water, along with dog biscuit.

My initial rucksack had failed to hold all the necessary, rather than think harder I took the easy option and dusted off the 75L bag from days gone by when my stupidity was at least counterbalanced by a younger more driven self.

Ego plays a part here, "I have still got it" and if I hadn't I was prepared to half kill myself trying at least to prove I had.  The rucksack bulged, I hefted it onto my back a few times.  I idly mused how this might work out in the wilds but I was more concerned with not breaking my wrists at the time.

All thoughts of "lightweight" had rather gone out the window because of the new challenges of keeping the dog in the bivvy and the need to be "comfortable" on the moor.

As the time approached I was as fit as boredom with cycling and running was going to allow.  Fit for fitness sake does not interest me at all, fit for a purpose is my only motivation.  There are only so many miles you can do on a static exercise cycle and only so many times you can run the same mile loop, the spectre of repetition looms.

The day was fast approaching and the myriad ways my venture could be defeated added more to packweight, the "just in case" weight.

Next time will see me driving down there and taking my first shaky steps on the moor itself.

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