Day 29: Moretonhampstead to Hexworthy 15 miles

Our stay at The Horse has been quite luxurious with a huge room and a top notch dinner. They don’t serve breakfast but gave us £20 off our dinner instead and we had breakfast at The White Hart down the road. We bought our lunch at the trusty Co-op and set off towards the moor despite the dismal weather forecast.

After about five minutes, our waterproof jackets were on. A further five minutes in and our gaiters and waterproof trousers were on as well. They stayed on for the duration of the walk. I had recently washed and reproofed my jacket and was dubious about whether it was waterproof. It wasn’t, but it kept out the howling wind.

We head for the village of North Bovey along the road as any path will already be waterlogged. We then head up and down heading to Canna Park and decide to continue to head up to the ridge, rather than follow along the valley. Looking at the map, we can always cross the moor and follow the road on the other side of at least we will still be in the heart of Dartmoor.

There is a good path climbing from Canna Park to Shapley and up onto the more. The wind and rain are worsening and the only living things we see are some farmyard geese and cows and sheep trudging through the bracken on the moor.

We pass through a gate and arrive at our decision point. The weather is so bad, it feels like nighttime and the moor is in complete white out. I stop to take a few photos and by the time I turn round, Richard has almost disappeared in the murk.

We head off towards the road and almost fall onto it out of the gloom. We turn into the wind and our hoods inflate with the force of the gusts despite being close-fitting; all of which confirms that we’ve done the right thing. The ridge remains in cloud for the rest of the day. We soon see some rather incongruous beehives, presumably for heather honey. If ant bee ventured out today, it would be in Somerset before it got going.

After a while, we meet two young men just setting off from their car to walk for the day. They look enviably dry and I wonder what they think of our drenched and bedraggled appearance. A little bit further on, we eat some chocolate, but we don’t stop as there is no shelter and we’d soon get chilled. When we can see it through the rain, our breath is condensing in the cold.

Rich suggests we turn off the road as there might be an alternative route, though it goes along an unadopted road that might not be a right of way. The rain is now forming rivulets down the road as we climb up. The route, sadly, doesn’t work and we change plans to dogleg back onto the previous road.

Here we meet sheep munching acorns from the tarmac. It has been a mast year, with large excesses of acorns, beech masts and other tree fruit. These happen every few years and exploit the strategy of predator satiation. So many fruit are produced that mice, squirrels and other seed eaters can’t consume them all, so some survive to grew into new trees. It is not known how the trees communicate to ensure they all produce bumper crops.

We have had no stops so far and the weather has finally relented a little, so we decide to take a lunch break. We sit down by the road and I notice, with some consternation, a sign that reads Moretonhampstead 5 miles. We have been walking steadily for over four hours, so this cannot be correct, even if there is a more direct road route. Rich creeps up to the other side of the sign and smiles. The numbers are transposed on this side - someone mixed up the stickers!

We set off up the hill and soon join the Two Moors Way, the route we had intended to take across the moor. The two moors are Exmoor and Dartmoor and the original 102 mile route ran from Ivybridge on the southern boundary of Dartmoor to Lynmouth on the North Devon coast. This has since been extended southwards to Wembury on the South Devon coast to form a 117 mile Devon coast to coast walk.

The Two Moors Way takes us to the hamlet of Jordan and from there follows a footpath by a tributary to the river Webburn which eventually flows into the Dart. As we reach the footpath, Rich slips on a rock and slides gracefully down, unhurt. It’s a reminder to us both to be careful.

The footpath comes out a Ponsworthy, where there is an honesty box cake stall of which we do not partake. Instead, we climb out of the village, and leaving the Two Moors Way, follow another road up onto the moor again. What looks like the hound of the Baskervilles on a hilltop is in fact one of the several Dartmoor ponies we see grazing here.

The weather is now alternating between sunshine and heavy, squally showers, all the time with a strong, gusting wind in our faces. We are, by now, soaked to the skin in any case. At least the wind might dry us out a bit.

As we walk on, we finally get to see a Dartmoor tor up close. Sharp Tor looks resplendent in the rare sunshine. We also see ravens twirling above us, one of few wildlife sightings we have had. We saw a yellow hammer on the first day, several buzzards daily and yesterday I caught a glimpse of a hare, as well as some rabbits. There was a kestrel up on the moor today as well.

We then trot down the hill to Dartmeet where the East and West Dart rivers join. As a student, I went to a training camp at Totnes where we rowed on the River Dart, often accompanied by friendly seals; it’s good to make its acquaintance again. We stop for tea and carrot cake at an outdoor cafe. This is delicious but it starts to rain heavily again as we are sitting there.

We then cross the bridge and take a footpath off to the left, after a lovely older lady warns us that the stepping stones over the river are currently submerged and, on hearing that we’re going the opposite way, kindly offers us a lift, which we politely decline. The path crosses a high stile then goes back briefly up onto a windswept moor before descending down onto the road to Hexworthy. I have a brief chat with some visiting Australians on a bridge then we climb the 1:4 hill into the village and the Dartmoor B&B above the Forest Inn pub.

Even our underwear is wet from what has been the worst weather we have encountered on any of these walks. We have also clocked up another 2500 feet of ascent and passed the 400 mile mark on the HoLEwalk.

Total distance: 408.5 miles