Day 2

 I slept quite well, despite the room being like another sauna. Obviously must have tired myself out! 

After another cooked breakfast, I headed out back onto the path. It was a long steady climb out of Ivybridge onto the moor. I decided to take an alternative route up Western Beacon, because the views were spectacular! I only took video, so if you want to see them, you’ll have to wait until I put the video of my walk onto YouTube! However, all that climbing obviously made me a right sweaty mess! 


I headed across the plateau and soon saw the first of many standing stones. Allegedly, these were put in place by local Abbey’s to assist their monks in navigating the moor. 

The path followed an old railway line, built in 1910 to a china clay mine. 

This went on for quite a long time, with very little to interest the eyes( that’s the problem with moorland walking)!
It was quite tiring and I started to feel a blister on the ball of my left foot. I stopped and aired my feet and applied a compeed blister plaster. 
After walking about 6 miles on that track, the Two Moors Way diverted off to the right. I’d like to say the path diverted off to the right, but apart from several sheep tracks, there was no obvious path. Needless to say, I got it wrong and headed in the wrong direction for half a mile. Realising my mistake, I assumed I could just head in the direction I needed to go. Well, in theory I could, but it meant wading through tussocks of grass, some with a 2ft drop either side. It was terrifying, because it would be so easy to break a leg or ankle falling into these little ravines! 



Eventually, I made my way to the ‘proper’ path, which brought me to this lovely ‘clapper bridge’ 



The path then became a bit easier to follow, although there are no signs, so you definitely need a map, to avoid taking the wrong alternative route. 

After a final climb over Dean Moor, I Suddenly had a view to look at, down off the moor towards Scorriton.

 It was a relatively gentle descent along another gravel track. 
I arrived at the pub in Scorriton, just as they were closing for the afternoon. I managed to persuade the landlady to serve me a beer to drink outside and I arranged to come back for an evening meal. 
I continued on for just under a mile, to a campsite at Michelcombe. 
The app I use on my phone to create the video showing the route, stopped working about 3 miles before the end. I’m fairly sure I’ve walked about 12 miles today, which doesn’t sound that much, but believe me, today’s walk was much harder than yesterday and similar number of steps 34000! 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 3

Image
 It was a lovely peaceful campsite at Dartmoor Shepherds Huts, or at least it should have been, Unfortunately, at about 10pm a group of Indian men turned up at one of the cabins and promptly started to have a drinking/cooking session on their veranda. I’ve no idea what they were saying because they were chatting in Urdu or Punjabi, but they continued on laughing and talking loudly until well past 3am, despite me asking to be quiet a couple of times! Needless to say, I was a bit grumpy when I got up this morning!  I packed up and left the site just before 9 and headed over to Holme, where there was a community shop/cafe. They weren’t quite ready to do breakfast when I arrived but I decided to wait for them, to get the prep done and I’m glad I did!    Whilst in the cafe, I recognised some of my fellow Two Moors Way hikers. A couple of men (Paul & Andy) and another man & wife team. Paul is camping and doing the whole thing like me, Andy was just accompanying him...
Read more

Day 6

Image
 I had an excellent sleep in my king-size bed, followed by a superb breakfast. Whilst it wasn’t cheap, the proprietors of the New Inn went the extra mile with their hospitality and soft touches, that it was worth the expense. I can heartily recommend.  Whilst getting ready to leave, we had a heavy shower of rain, which soaked everything. I decided to put my waterproof socks on and headed out. Coleford was already off-route, so I decided to make my own route to Morchard Bishop, where I would re-join the official route. I thought I was being clever by picking road and farm tracks, which should have kept my feet dry. Unfortunately, a few of the by-ways turned out to be too narrow for tractors and therefore very overgrown by lack of use. This meant that my boots soon got saturated, but fortunately the waterproof socks seemed to keep my feet dry.  I made fairly quick progress to Morchard Bishop, where there was a small community shop, that also sold coffee and pasties. They al...
Read more

Day 7

Image
I slept quite well in my wild camp spot, even if I did get woken up by rain showers a few times.  I got up at 7:30 and fed myself with a dehydrated meal, because I knew I had a long day ahead.  I set off to sunshine, but in no time had my first soaking of the day.  I had diverted off the path to a service area on the A361 that had a cafe, but just my luck it was all shut up on a Sunday. I sat in the entrance to some locked toilets, dodging some really heavy rain.  I really did begin to question my sanity and my choices ( I nearly chose to go to the South of France instead of this walk)! After that drenching, I walked to the village of Knowstone, which had a pub ( that was also shut on a Sunday). Are they all Methodists around here?  As I was walking through the village, I got propositioned by a man dressed in Lycra, who asked me if I wanted to join him in a spin class. I declined his offer and walked quickly out of the village.  That’s right, I left Knowsto...
Read more