England #16- driving through a bit of Dartmoor after the ruins

Here is one big downside of waiting so long to write about the trip— now it’s hard to remember what part of Dartmoor was on May 5, the day we went to the two castles and drove back to Bodmin through the park, and what was May 6, the day we drove up to Peasedown St John/Bath,  also through the park. At least my Flickr pictures do have dates, so I can kind of figure it out through them. I would have absolutely sworn that on the Castle Ruins Day we drove back to Bodmin through the middle of Dartmoor on the B3212 (as evidenced by both my previous entries about this day where I said that’s what we did), but looking at the map, we had to have gone down the western edge of Dartmoor, with a little bit of a veer into the moors before coming to Tavistock, where we got on A roads to Bodmin. I know this because we ate at the Fox and Hounds pub in Lydford, so we had to be going south on the A386 after leaving Okehampton. On Saturday, May 6, we did go right through the center of the moors, though.

SO, this will be a lot more pictures than text, as all we did was drive after the second castle ruin. I really REALLY wanted to hike at least a little in Dartmoor, which is a national park full of moors and tors and standing stones, and especially wanted to see Hound Tor, but all of the hikes seemed to involve quite a long drive off the roads we were on, and we of course didn’t have enough time on Friday after the jail and two castles. We thought we could do it the next day, on our way to Bath, but it was kind of the same thing – lack of time, lack of being able to figure out exactly where to go, and we also got a bit scared off by the woman who checked us out of our Bodmin place. When we mentioned hiking on the moors, she said it wouldn’t be a good day to do it, as it was overcast and a bit rainy, and the fog comes in very suddenly on the moors, making it easy to get lost. We didn’t want to be lost on the moors. And since both of us can get lost just walking out our own front doors, it seemed best to skip the moor hike.

We did see loads of rock formations and tors from the road, at least, and Dartmoor is a gorgeous, gorgeous area. We kept stopping to take pictures and oooh and ahhh over the scenery, of course.  There was hardly any traffic – but sheep everywhere! And it’s a little two-lane road through Dartmoor, which was great after the four-lane though the Bodmin Moor. We felt like we were in the middle of nowhere – and we were!

This was the remains of some kind of old mine, I think- how did I know that? Maybe there was a sign?? Why did I wait so long for this!!

Amazing views, with gorse (the yellow bush- it was everywhere), cattle, and hills with rocks in the background.

Rock formations there over the top of the hill – and sheep! We never tired of seeing sheep, even though we saw several million.

Looking at this picture, I was wondering if I was driving on the wrong side of the road- yikes!! But, duh, I was standing in the road. The empty, empty road.

This is the Fox and Hounds in Lydford, a little south of Okehampton. There was a reason that I didn’t get a better picture of the front of it, but I have no idea what that reason was now. It was a fun pub – it looked like mostly locals, and there were lots of people with dogs in the pub part. Also lots of people in camouflage, making us wonder if there was a military base around.

At this point we were, of course, starving – we rarely managed to find somewhere to eat before we were about to keel over – and the jacket potato and mushrooms I had was fantastic. As was the Timothy Taylor bitter ale! Amusingly Kim tried to order cream tea with her dinner, which we assumed was tea with cream on the side to pour into the tea. When the bartender expressed surprise that she wanted dinner AND cream tea, we discovered that cream tea is a meal. With tea and scones and jam etc. So, not something you’re generally going to go for WITH your dinner. She just got a pot of tea instead, and laughter by the bartender. OH and we also finally had sticky toffee pudding – Kim had been wanting to order some the entire week, but we always ended up being too full for desert after dinner. Finally we ordered one and split it, and it was delicious.

Then it was back to Bodmin, and a pint at the Hole in the Wall, a nifty old pub right in town. It was a debtors prison from 1749-1799, so was in a very old building. I wish we’d found it earlier, since it got great reviews and also had a really nice garden, but that evening it was too cold to sit out there. More moor pics next entry, as we leave Cornwall and head north across the moors to just south of Bath!