Is starting something like this supposed to be easy? I don’t know for others, but sometimes I procrastinate. The will is there but the body is a bit slow to catch up…
The start had been made last year, at the end of April 2018. All the hills had been identified, routes planned and time allotted as I felt if you have to start, make it easy. Or I was dragging my feet. And although I had spent years on Dartmoor, if felt like an awfully big adventure. I was lucky with the weather, cool dry morning and sunny days for the most part, grey and drizzle for the latter part of the year. And such mornings! Full bursting sunshine (although not great for the SLE) of an orange fireball in the morning, cold, frosty, freezing fog at the start of the year that resulted in the damage of tent zips, wild camping in woods with my faithful hound, Angus (a black cocker spaniel with the size and character of a 4 year old boy), who decided that although walks are nice, he’d rather be at home on the sofa being hand fed biscuits by my wife. No wonder he is the size he is…
The Dartmoor hills are called Tors if they have the crown of granite poking out of the moorland tops and are very impressive in the quiet of the evening, solo camping amongst the grass and heather of the moor. Clear nights in my experience have been few and far between, as I’ve been far to busy to notice or I’ve slept under a bed of cloud or mist. One of my recent memories was waking at three in the morning wondering why there was a torch blazing at my tiny tent in the middle of nowhere. There wasn’t, and I stepped out into one of the clearest, moon filled nights I have ever seen, with a blanket of ice and frost covering the ground and I have never known it so quiet and….eerie? It was like stepping into a dreamworld, so bitterly cold and still, it seemed time itself had stopped and taken every human reference with it. I loved it and it remains one of my most abiding memories of my time on the moor.
More trips followed as the weather improved, taking me into areas of the moor I had never really visited before, or had just passed through. I explored the northern and eastern fringes, stopping long enough to walk to the top, log the hill and move on past the crowds of day trippers. I explored prehistoric and medieval farms, villages and compounds, gaining strength and exploring my own limits of what was achievable and how long it took to recover after a full days exercise. I was on my way.
Walking with the Wolf 