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I'm off for a walk. Why not come with me?
I've parked up in gentle Lydford, a few miles from where I'm living. Home to Lydford Gorge and the beautiful White Maiden waterfall.
But that's not the way I'm going. I'm heading up to Widgery Cross and the tor beyond it.
I first came to Dartmoor as a teenager on my Duke of Edinburgh's Award scheme expeditions. I'd been back just a handful of times in the thirty something years since bit it's always meant something to me. Like the music that first moves us, landscapes have similar power.
One of the glories of Dartmoor, of Devon really, is the lushness of its mosses and lichens. I'd like to say it's the clearness of the air that encourages them but, let's be honest, it's pretty wet down here and that must help. It's like velvet!
Is the gorse meant to be in flower in early February? I don't know. With these blue skies, sun warmed stone walls and blooming horse there's almost a Mediterranean feel in the air today. I'm already regretting the layers upon layers of clothing I set out with!
Over a gentle rise and there's the river Lyd, barely more than a stream at this point. In just a mile or so it cuts an impressive gorge as it flows off the moor. Here it ripples and sings as it dances across its stony bed.
It's hardly a challenging walk down the valley but with its undulations, rocky scrambles and slippy patches it would have beyond the reach of my wife in her last few years. I would have felt disloyal walking it without her and pressured to rush to get back.
Down to the swimming hole. Three strokes takes you across it and the water bites like a white wolf. In summer this place is packed they tell me - in winter you can have it to yourself. I'll come back to swim tomorrow.
Above the pool a moving plaque remembering a young man who died more than a hundred years ago reminds us that love for the special qualities of places like this is hardly a new thing. A love of the peace of nature puts us into brother and sisterhood that crosses time and space.
Following a tangle of sheep pioneered, dung scattered, rabbit trimmed paths down the sharp cut valley it's tempting to look up and out. But keeping attention close reveals a symphony of lichens and mosses.
Looking around with a different gaze walls, pits and shafts come I to focus. Dartmoor is no wilderness - it's been an industrial landscape for millennia.
Following sheep paths is a little unwise. You might end up in a tangle of gorse and find your path has disappeared. You'd think the sheep would know the good places to go right?
...buy when you turn and look back the views are worth the prickles! Watch out Cornwall, I'm looking at you!
Who sleeps under here do you suppose? Mostly sheep I guess but it's almost a dereliction of pychogeographical, storytelling duty that there isn't some chieftain, warrior or priestess walled in with her grave goods.
Up at the top of Brat Tor, Widgery Cross looks out over the edge of the moor. You can see it from the main road and it calls to me every time I pass. It was put up to commemorate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee apparantly so not of any great age compared to some Dartmoor crosses.
A landscape like this with ricks and blocks to scramble about on was very heaven to ten year old Ed. I'm fifty next birthday and I still like to risk an ankle for an exhilarating hop across the chasm from rock to rock.
Grass and moor and rock and sky. Does it get better than this? I'm not sure it does.
At my highest, and furthest point on my walk now - all down hill from Great Links Tor. Is it just me or is there something of the Medieval castle to a good Dartmoor Tor?
I doubt you'll find a finer view than this today. Click in to really see it!
The close nibbled grass and galaxy of poop make some wonder what it would be like if the sheep and rabbits had never come to Dartmoor. Would the aurochs and the native ponies keep the sward down and trim whips before they became saplings? What would a rewilded Dartmoor be like?
What do you think? Sarcophagus or crocodile?
Back to the river where we first met it for another moment of reflection before heading back. If you came this far, thank you for keeping me company. If you're stuck at home isolating or due to foul weather I hope this was a breath of fresh air rather than torture! See you soon.
