A Day at Dartmoor

Dartmoor is home to the Royal Navy.  Kay is good with the statistics but it encompasses quite a large area of Devon.  We skirted Exeter on the M5 to get there.  There are little villages scattered throughout but they are remote.  At first the area is typical Devon with beautiful farmland divided by hedgerows on rolling hills as far as you can see.  As we ascend, the topography changes and looks more like what we saw in the Black Mountains of Wales.  It is very cold, windy and stark.  They have wild horses here.  We saw a lot of them and even managed to get close to a few later in the afternoon.  Also they have mountain sheep (we assume) because they are very different than the ones in our backyard.  These are horned and have very long, straight, silky hair.

They also have stone circles, stacks or mounds here as you can find all over the UK.  The roads are single lane with hedgerows so high you can't see what's on the other side.  Kay is doing an awesome job of driving but it is nerve racking and keeps you tense.  It wasn't until we were leaving the last village that we had our only "close encounter".  A local coming in the opposite direction chose not to wait until we could back up to a "turnout" and plowed through...honestly we were in the hedgerows on my side and she missed on Kay's side by an inch!  We were horrified....well Kay had other words for the lady.  We find the drivers here much more aggressive and not as friendly as they were in the Cotswolds.  Maybe the Cotswold people were more used to tourists or maybe they are just more layed back than here.  We are closer to a big city here.

We stopped in the last little village of Widecombe.  We got a drink and chips at the local pub then walked around before leaving.  This little village was a lot like Illmington where we stayed last year.  Little school with the children all in uniforms, a pub, beautiful church and city center. 

We set "George" to go home and he leads us on yet another back one lane road adventure that we have come to expect.  We make it home.  The weather today has been much colder and we had a combination of wind and rain with short periods of sun.