A Mother's Day walk on Dartmoor:
DS offered to accompany me on a walk for Mother's Day. DH decided to join us - Wahey! a family outing. I decide to take us to Merrivale and King's Tor on Dartmoor:

Map from Ordinance Survey web site here

A funny thing happened on way through Postbridge:

We got held up by two highwaymen! That guy in the foreground is picking up pony poop! DS reckons that Postbridge was the actual location of the most incompetent highwayman ever - our highwayment requested our money or our wheelnuts..This was all in aid of Comic Relief - I went to quiz type event at the hospital yesterday - which was rednose day 2007 .

Starting off at Merrivale (the last Dartmoor granite quarry to be closed, in 1997) we headed off toward Feather Tor.

There are two leats which divide, marked by a granite way marker cross.












This is Vixen Tor.

This picture is really odd - DH looks really small - but then DS is HUUUGE! Syd in the stream in the foreground.

Here is DS (in his Alice Starmore jumper again) posing pensively (with sheep).
Strolling down a moorland road we could see Pew Tor lit up by sunlight in the distance -

The lane led us to Sampford Spinney (a small hamlet which can be seen at the bottom of the map). This is the church nestled amongst the trees.

Anenomes in the hedgerow:

Gratuitous picture of my favourite girl, Tilly.


We clambered down beside the Ward Bridge to sit on the bank of the River Walkham. Saw a mink running along the opposite bank. (That's no mink in an orange hat, that's me).

We then strolled back up on to the moors and along part of the disused railway line built by Tyrwhitt in 1822, past Swelltor quarries and King's Tor. We followed the old Princetown to Tavistock packhorse waymarkers which took up past the famous Merrivale antiquities consisting of three stone rows, stone circles, standing stones and kistvaens, to finally emerge half a mile down the road from Merrivale Quarry again. (Getting too dark for pics by this time).

Back in the car, a Dartmoor Pony (well, not technically a Dartmoor Pony as he was a grey, but a pony on Dartmoor shall we say) stuck his head in through the window to say goodbye. Or, more probably, checked us out for anything savoury. On our way home we stopped by the Warren House Inn for supper and a pint and a spot of knitting. Reputed to be the second highest Inn in England, the Warren House is also supposed to have a fire that has been burning continuously for over 100years - but since DS worked there the summer hols a few years back and saw it re-kindled several mornings, I know that's not true. Still - you can always guarantee a smouldering log in the grate what ever time of the year you go there.