My Own Private Wyoming

First thing Thursday morning the sunlight through the gap in the curtains was doing something interesting to the half line from U A Fanthorpe's BC:AD that I painted on the wall last week. 

And since it is written that the British Isles are permitted only one sunny day per week throughout August, I packed Ted dog in the front passenger seat footwell and headed for Dartmoor.

I had a hankering to see Double Waters again - the spot in the far west of Dartmoor where the River Tavy and the River Walkham meet. So we parked at Magpie Bridge outside Tavistock and set off.

The Walkham valley is a bit magical.

I was reminded of this when my camera took a photo of its own accord. I've no idea how it did this, but the result shows promise. (I'm pretty sure it's my head and not Ted's arse, though he is still moulting and shaggy-looking.)

It's a bit of a scramble down to Grenofen Bridge. Every now and then the path by the river peters out so you climb the muddy, stony bank to a higher alternative, only for the original, idyllic path to open up again about ten yards later.

There did seem to be a lot of downed trees. 

Past Grenofen Bridge we were on familiar ground, though I hadn't been there for almost 11 years. It's sylvan and gorgeous ...

... though there are also plenty of reminders of the river's industrial past, such as this revetment or retaining wall which supports the track into the old quarry. 

West Down Mine Chimney. There were at least six mines here in the past.  The most famous, probably on account of its name, is the Virtuous Lady Mine.

But the river always refocuses your attention as it tumbles over rocks and pools in hollows. 

And all this to ourselves. Almost. 

Eventually we reached a spot where the river runs tight around the base of a cliff. You can only follow it further by climbing a steep track and passing through a cleft in the rock ... 

... and just like that, you're in the valley of the River Tavy and there are two rivers becoming one below you. This is Double Waters.







Sitting on a handy milestone, I remembered that 11 years ago the rock and the two valleys had reminded me of something from my childhood, but I hadn't been able to recall what it was. But having recently reread all of Mary O'Hara's stories about Ken McLoughlin and his horses in Wyoming, I knew this time: it was like that episode at the end of Thunderhead Part III where Ken dynamites the pass into the Valley of the Eagles so that Thunderhead and his mares can't escape from their place of safety.

I watched the two rivers for a while - the Tavy the stiller of the two, the Walkham fretting over rocks as it loses itself in its neighbour's waters. 

Our return route was over Roborough Down. On the way I kept an eye out for wild boar, which were big news in the area ten years ago but seem to have gone deep undercover since.

I also looked out for adders because I'm not sure Ted doesn't know not to sniff at them and he sniffs at a lot of things on Dartmoor.

Just about the only thing we saw, however, was a buzzard high overhead and something that scurried into our path and then departed as quickly and insubstantially as a blown leaf.

As we climbed out of the woods, that glorious ridge of tors to the north came into view: Cox Tor, Roos Tor, Great Staple Tor, Great Mis Tor, and King Tor.  And I had an inkling then as to why Dartmoor started to mean so much to me during my childhood.

I don't think it was so much my father's annual road trip - from Haytor Rocks to Widecombe-in-the-Moor to Dartmeet to Princetown and finally Postbridge - as my imagination: reading about far grander landscapes I'd never have a realistic chance of seeing for myself, and finding an echo in my own, more modest wild place. Dartmoor, with its hills and its loneliness and its wild ponies, is my Never Summer Mountains, my Valley of the Eagles, my green grass. And if we're going to bring that bloody red pony into it, it's my own private California too.

Between The Devil and the Deep Black Mire

Look, a raven launching itself from Boulters Tor.

And a chatter of jackdaws just up the track.

And a swallow swooping over the tangle of streams at Wedlake, below White Tor.  

And in between, the view back down the track to Peter Tavy ...

... and over to St Michael de Rupe on top of Brent Tor.  

We'd also stopped for a chat with John (or George) Stephens at his grave ...

... leaving him a little bunch of hawkweed and heather, and a black feather, wrapped in sheep's wool, secured with a few strands of hair and weighed down with a glittery white granite chip.  Though upon reflection, maybe the lucky heather was a bit late.  Still, maybe the feather will help his spirit fly ...  

... though not back home, obviously; that's why his grave is at this crossroads.  

After the long gentle descent to the bottom of the valley came the climb up the slopes of Roos Tor.

It started out benignly enough ... 

... but soon became a sort of attrition.  

Every now and then we had to have a little rest ...

 ... but we made it in the end. 

This is the massive logan or rocking stone at the summit. 

From Roos Tor there is a great view up to the twin stacks of Great Staple Tor, like a giant granite gateway ... 

... and over to Cox Tor.  To both of which I was planning to walk. 

But then I told the Northerner about the stone circle on Langstone Moor, and the eponymous standing stone, and suddenly that was where we were headed instead, along the wet and sloshy track you can just see heading north into nowhere.

Looking over the Walkham valley to Great Mis Tor

A skylark - silent and just visible 

Langstone Moor Stone Circle

Between the stone circle and the standing stone, which was our next point on the walk, the ground is so wet as to constitute mire.  

It's prudent to head north to a relatively dry track, rather than pick your way over them. Having done that, we would be able to make our way past the foot of White Tor and Boulters Tor, back down to my car which was parked in a disused quarry just above Peter Tavy. 

So here is the standing stone, circled in purple, towards which we must progress ... and alongside it, ringed in red, a colossal Highland bull, standing and staring in our direction. 




I know this bull. I met him last year, not too far from this very spot.  He is the size of a static caravan.  The Northerner and I retired to the mire to have an intense discussion of tactics.  

My companion wanted to go back the way we had come and then pick our way down the valley, which would have involved a fair bit of traversing of mire.  I wanted to risk passing close-ish to the bull, on the grounds that the bull probably won't get you but the mires always will.  It wasn't much of a choice, however.  

In the end the bull wandered back up the hill a bit and we reached the standing stone with nothing worse than squelchy feet.  

This sheep wasn't as lucky - now just foam and bones. 

But we were busy putting mucho distance between us and the bull and look, here's that funny quilty ground again, which is so characteristic of this part of the moor.  

Give me Dartmoor Hill Ponies over bulls anyday.