Dartmoor

So I’m going to stay a bit closer to home for a bit - I’ve been here over 6 months now and was a bit embarrassed that I hadn’t been to Dartmoor yet.

It’s about an hours drive to the heart of if from Exeter, and although it is still Criss-crossed with roads and covered in farmland, it still has very much a sense of wildness to it. The hills are big but very flat; so all sense of distance is distorted- you can find yourself making quite a lot of elevation without getting all that puffed just because the hill eeks up slowly.

The tops of the hills have thumbs of granite poking up- “tors” that remain after the rest has eroded, and with big chunks of rocks scattered around them from where the water has split apart the main rock over thousands of years. Think of perhaps, a Jenga tower, partly collapsed, with the pieces lying around.

It wasn’t take-your-breath-away stunning like the highlands, but something different and I think, just as special - a slow realisation of the oldness of the place. And  habitation, occasional rock circles indicating ancient settlers. Like there’s stories weaved into the marsh, muttering in the streams.

The flatness of the horizon pulls the sky down; you can see the weather coming, and see how easy it would be to get lost when the clouds nestle in the wide huge shallow valleys.

My housemate made quesadillas near one of the tors; heating up tortillas over a small gas cooker and pan. There were dogs everywhere, and even a few (now non-fruiting) blueberry bushes. All the good things. 

Things are going well here.

I wander around with half a brain set on the unfolding events at home…