Boxing Day can be a tricky one to judge, depending on indulgences on the day before, will decide your start time. Also the fact that it will normally be very busy as 26th can be a popular day for getting out and walking and finally the weather, which can be fickle at this time of…
In the middle of December the UK weather finally turned towards winter, after a very warm autumn the snow arrived across the whole country. Even Dartmoor got a bit, especially the high tors near to Okehampton. Princetown had received a small amount so we headed there for a cold walk, with just enough snow, to…
A Sunday in December and the weather has turned over the last week, finally. After a long warm autumn we finally hit some gloomy and cold weather, and some rain. This walk was squeezed in between rainy days and luckily for us, it fell when it was at least dry. The clouds however, were very…
We’d had a Sunday off walking when we’d returned from the Lake District so despite the low cloud and dull conditions we headed out ready for another Dartmoor walk. The week’s break has allowed me to catch up a bit on the number of outstanding walks I had to post and I am exactly one…
Our first walk after returning from the Lakes and we wanted something easy to get to and also fairly easy to walk, this area is easy to get around due to the Redlake tramway (Puffing Billy track) which runs from just above this parking spot. This walk snakes on and around the tramway heading north…
Our last walk in the Lakes for this week and finally we hit a day were the rain had stopped. At least for our location anyway. There was plenty of blue skies between the clouds, and a strong breeze was making sure those clouds moved quickly across the sky. There were rain showers but luckily…
After a couple of walks where we had needed some serious ‘clothes drying by the fire’ at the end of the walk, you’d have thought we would avoid a weather forecast that said strong winds up to 60mph and heavy and persistent rain with cloud cover down on the high and medium fells. But when…
After two fell walks and a day in the pub we needed a lower walk (plus a lie in). I’ve been wanting to add on Rydal Water to my normal Grasmere loop and this was the day. We started out after lunch and after the rain had eased a little. The rain stopped as we…
Day 2 for us in the Lakes and a decision to be made, walk from the house or scoot around to the Gale Road car park and head up to Skiddaw Little Man. The former won the vote due to a late start and therefore no need to worry about parking anywhere, we were heading…
November and a week booked in the Lakes. Not normally a choice for many but the hardiest of walkers. I’ve been quite a few times now in the half term at the end of October, this time we chose the second week in November. I figured that the 2 weeks won’t make too much difference,…
This is a walk in an area that doesn’t get nearly enough pages on websites. I’ve said it before that if the tors, inside the square mile of Shaptor Woods, were out on Dartmoor proper, then you would have thousands of visitors flocking there. They are stupendous. So much so that a new book has…
After two previous weekend trips away with the boys this one was the 3rd one this year. We’d been to Weymouth and Bideford so far and this was a trip to Newquay. This walk was in the half term at the end of October (which gives you an idea of how far behind I am…
This was a walk to pick up some tors in the north eastern side of Dartmoor. I have been meaning to come back to Whiddon Wood now for a while. Lots of woodland here, and at this time of year, plenty of brown bracken to bash through and the odd awkward fence to hop over…
Another walk on Dartmoor here, this one was near to home and the plan was that there wasn’t really a plan. Other than the starting point the only real plan was to be around Burrator, with a hope to get across to Sheeps Tor. As it was we decided to head out a little further…
Some of the best walks that there is on the moor, will include Tavy Cleave at some point within it. This route not only walks the length of it but also heads out to Fur Tor, over the settlements at Watern Oke, before looping back around Cut Hill and Little Kneeset. The finale is a…
So having canned the plan to walk around Durdle Door and Lulworth Cove, we woke late to glorious sunshine, a quickly hatched plan meant we would drive a short distance towards home, walk and then carry on from there. I’d previously walked as far as a caravan/camping park at Burton Bradstock, so the plan was…
A weekend away in Weymouth and a chance to walk some of the coastal path that’s a bit far to do in one day from home. The weather looked a bit rubbish for the Saturday, but Sunday looked good. So the plan was to walk towards Portland on the poorer day and then do the…
We had a weekend in Weymouth booked and decided we needed a warm up coastal walk in order to prepare for that area. We decided that north Cornwall was again the area, and we would carry on further north from my previous walk passing Bude (here). This walk passes the huge GCHQ satellite dishes on…
It was the day of Queen Elizabeth’s funeral and we’d decided to head out early and take in the blue skies forecast. However we faffed a bit and didn’t get going until after 10am, luckily its a short drive to Gutter Tor so we were off and walking around 11am. This is a really easy…
A walk over some of the high spots of the north moor, setting out from Belstone with the plan to get up to Steeperton Tor and then back possibly over Cosdon Hill. The weather looked good on the reports with mainly high cloud and some sunny spells which makes this area really a great place…
A walk with the boys, this one again from home. This one was 6 miles and we headed out towards Down Thomas first before picking up the coastal path to Bovisand and then a good route back home. This walk was early September so temperatures were still good and the sun was shining, with some…
After walks in the Lakes, 3 Dartmoor walks and a walk from home with the boys, it was time to get back to the coastal path. We had a weekend booked in Weymouth coming up so didn’t want to head east and looking at the weather report, a bank of cloud was coming up from…
The end of a list and one which I’d probably only found out about when I was actually half way through completing it. The Dartmoor 365 list will take you everywhere across Dartmoor and I mean everywhere. Villages, tors, woodlands, valleys, churches, ruins, streams, pools, bridges, crosses, farms and one particular square with nothing in…
Another sweltering day at the end of August, this time myself and the boys headed out for a short walk, which turned out to be 5 1/2 miles. We wanted somewhere mainly in the trees and this one worked out pretty well for us in that respect before the walk back across the fields. Walking…
Time for another Dartmoor walk and this time its out on the eastern side around Lustleigh, I hadn’t been to Lustleigh this year and I think it was April 2021 when I last walked the area and possibly 2019 since I was last on Harton Chest which is really remiss of me, seeing as its…
Back from the Lakes and I was keen to get out for another walk, the only issue was the blistering sun. So I decided again to follow previous plans of staying close to water in order to cool off, alongside lots of stops for breaks and shade. The place was Postbridge, which meant a nice…
Well this was certainly the hottest I’d experienced in the Lake District in the 14 years that I had been coming up. Temperatures touching 30-35 degrees were being seen around the area. Places to swim rather than fells to walk were the order of the day. We were staying 10 mins walk from Derwent Water…
The hot weather continued in The Lakes throughout this week as it did across the country, most of what we did was done in the morning before we went back to the house to stay cool. Both these short walks are easily done in an hour or so and both enjoy plenty of cover, which…
So this was the first real walk in the Lakes on this holiday, it was the day after the wedding, so we weren’t really up and at it first thing. Still we left the house around 10am to head across the Whinlatter Pass to the parking which is roadside along the side of Loweswater. Booted…
I’ve just had a look through my photos from our trip to the Lakes in the second week of August, it didn’t take long to remember the heat. Over 30 degrees in the Lakes is unheard of for us. It made searching for places to swim and cool off more important than places to walk,…
Just prior to heading to the Lake District for our family holiday, myself and the boys had a chance to head out for a short walk. We chose the western side of Dartmoor as I don’t think the boys have been to these tors before, which is a big error on my part. The best…
The plan for this walk was to pick off part of the coastal path between Rame and Seaton and look to complete a section of the coastal path running all the way from West Bay in Dorset to Pentewan in Cornwall. Which is a fair distance! After this I’ve only got the bit from Trethill…
Plenty of July and now on into August has been pretty hot for us here in the south west of England, as a result I’ve avoided walking on occasions and instead headed for a swim. This one is from mid July and previous wild swim spots of Shilley Pool, Sherrah Pool, Spitchwick and Cadover Bridge…
Having missed my annual trip to see the bluebells at Holwell Lawn, I was determined not to miss this outing for a sunset at Cox Tor/Pork Hill area. The really hot weather at the start of July gave plenty of evenings with the right sunset conditions, plus walking in the day would have been madness.…
The promise of some nice sunshine, warm weather, but not too warm. Perfect for walking and I figured a good time to head out along the River Erme. Parking at Harford Gate still appears to closed off and as it was Sunday I figured parking on the road at the church might be a bit…
A damp day and not much chance of it clearing enough to do a decent walk on Dartmoor with the boys. I figured that I would take the opportunity to head to Becky Falls (yep there’s a cost to get in) and tick the Dartmoor 365 box to say I’ve been. To be honest there’s…
We are nearing the end of June for this walk and the recent weather had been changeable. As I sit here in baking hot sunshine with sweat dripping from very pore, it seems strange that a few weeks ago we were wondering whether summer had been and gone in a blink. Plenty of heavy showers…
Every now and again the pull of a new coast walk means I need to scour maps looking for somewhere along the South West Coastal Path to walk. Petrol prices currently are meaning that if I’m heading out I’ll be going along quicker roads to minimise the fuel used, and not hitting too many lanes…
A simple evening walk with my youngest as the evenings approached the solstice. The walk itself isn’t more than 2 miles, but its perfect for an evening and if you get here early enough it could easily be extended up to Piles Hill and Sharp Tor, or across to Ugborough Beacon. The walk starts by…
Slightly different extended bank holiday outings for me. I thought about walking out on Dartmoor or the coast, the weather was certainly forecast to be good enough. But I chose instead to head to a couple of National Trust places, make use of my membership and have a couple of simple days out and a…
A classic pub quiz question asking, “what is the only town in England with an exclamation mark in its name?” Westward Ho! of course. A question I got right time and again at Uni in the north of England. Living in Devon it isn’t even asked, an easy question. Its taken me a while to…
A walk around the lanes on the south eastern edge of Dartmoor, starting out from Ashburton, with a return route which included a section alongside the A38! The main reason for this walk was to mop up a clump of Dartmoor 365 squares that were left together, leaving me with just 5 now which are…
Another day out on the edge of the moor, the north eastern corner of the moor to be precise. I’ve done lots of this walk previously (here), that time I headed straight from Christow up towards Kiln Down and then up towards Bridford. This time I added a section further south to pickup my last…
I can’t remember the reason why we headed out on a Friday night for a walk, rather than a Saturday, it may have been Saturday’s weather forecast, either way this was a short walk from the house, across a few fields and back. Nothing difficult, but it was a chance to see the yellow fields…
This walk was my first one back in Devon after the Lake District holiday, the map below looks a bit scruffy and too be honest the walk is a bit of that. I didn’t start out on the best foot, forgetting to take my walking boots, however my Merrells did me just fine, showing how…
Time for one last walk on the penultimate day, the weather all week had been getting better and better with lots of sunshine. We’d only had one patch of rain/drizzle, which happened to be from midnight until about 8am on the Monday. It had been a good weather week and it had been too good…
Post 4 from the Easter trip to the Lake District, so far we’ve had post number 500 which was just out favourite parts of the Lakes having been coming here for 14 years now. Then two posts of big walks, firstly Yewbarrow, Scoat Fell and Haycock, followed by Eagle Crag around to Ullscarf. This walk…
Not sure why I picked this walk straight after the last one. Looking at ascents up a fell, Yewbarrow and Eagle Crag are two of the most fearsome in the district. From my list I’m only missing Sharp Edge on Blencathra and I’d have had a hattrick on this holiday. Now here comes a warning,…
First of the big walks on the Easter visit to the Lakes this year. My Wainwright map has far too many dots in the south western side, particularly around Eskdale and Wasdale. Time for a visit out that way. Now some would say that heading to Wasdale on an Easter Sunday is asking for trouble,…
Arriving back from the Lakes after my Easter holiday, I had a look through my stats page after posting a walk I did before heading 400 miles north, and noticed that I was sat on 499 posts. What to do for number 500, my first big walk in this visit to the Lakes was from…
A decent stretch of good weather has meant that Dartmoor has dried a little and is perfect for a trek into some of the more central areas, far from roads. This area stacks up the tors, 16 of them in such a small area, some of them are very impressive, others smaller outcrops, some just…
Cold nights and clear days, frost on the ground in the morning and good views to the distance as you walk. Conditions were perfect, as they had been for a week or two now. I decided to head up to the north western corner of the moor for a bit of Dartmoor 365 bagging and…
This visit came after our stay in Weymouth and I’ve said this before, that myself and the boys love this place, it sits not to far from Dorchester and for us its a couple of hours away. Here the boys put into practice their school history lessons and take back more intricate knowledge than they…
This is a first of two posts regarding another visit for myself and the boys to the Tank Museum in Dorset, this one involved a stay in a Premier Inn in Weymouth overnight, in order to make the next day drive far easier. This was instead of and an out and back from Plymouth, with…
If you are heading clockwise around the South West Coastal Path then after the heights of High Cliff this part will be a doddle. A lovely flatish section of coastal path, without the climbs and drops of the previous parts. A chance to walk along a beach as well, without worrying about the high cliff…
After three walks in a row on Dartmoor it was back to the coastal path, specifically the south Cornwall area around St Austell. I’d previously walked around Gribben Head from Fowey to Par Sands and the other side I’d walked from Porthpean to Pentewan. This walk joins those two sections together through the town of…
Now tell someone that you are taking two teenage boys to an abbey on a Saturday afternoon and they will either suggest you make an appointment with a doctor or laugh out loud and think you are joking. Well this is something I did, firstly its a Dartmoor 365 square, so it needed visiting and…
After the false start on the previous walk, which necessitated a different walking plan, I decided to return to the area a couple of days later, park a bit further north and set out again to bag some Dartmoor 365 squares. In this case 4 squares and a nice summit of Manaton Rocks. This summit…
I’d booked a couple of days off work and planned a walk or two, covid in the household meant that I was encouraged to be out all day to allow for me to stay away from it, and the patient, a break from bedroom isolation. Not needing to be asked twice (I had planned to…
A walk around a familiar area with a change to norm. I’d joined a walk with a group, the Walk Dartmoor 365 group had arranged a gathering, not a long walk but a chance to meet like minded people and walk an area I’d been to lots of times. However with Paul taking us around…
Another walk along this eastern stretch of the South West Coastal Path towards Portland, as I push further east towards Chesil Beach. We’d had a few days of decent sunshine so I decided on a walk that deserved a day befitting of the weather. The highest point on the entire south coast of England should…
Finally out for a walk, after 2 weeks of watching rain pour and wind blow, plus a couple of days of decorating in the house. I spotted a chance of a walk in somewhere that had grey clouds but not necessarily rain until mid afternoon, the wind was just a yellow warning so it felt…
A weekend where the weather wasn’t playing ball for me, the strong winds and rain coming into the south west seemed to correspond with the time that I could walk. So I had a search and managed to find a weather window between 10am and 2pm in a place I hadn’t walked on the coastal…
This walk was an attempt to tick off a number of Dartmoor 365 squares as far away from home as it gets on Darrtmoor for me. The 3 squares of Blackaller Quarry, Drewsteignton and Greystone are full Dartmoor 365 squares with Crockenwell and Cheriton Bishop being a couple of bonus squares. I also managed to…
Another of those three walks I needed to finish off to complete a long section of coastal path from Charmouth to Whitsand Bay, sorting this one means I just have a section around Torquay to do on this long stretch. This is another section which has parts of the path which are a short distance…
I’ll be honest I’m not sure why I walked from home on this day, I just did. It might of been the lack of gumption to drive to somewhere else, either way I have a few good options on the doorstep and I took advantage of one of them for a decent walk which takes…
First walk of the new year and choices on where to go. Dartmoor, coast, east, west, north. In the end it was the weather that made my mind up, a few days earlier I had walked on the north eastern side of Dartmoor and the weather had altered from the gloomy drizzle to the west…
Well 2021 has now passed and we all start to make plans for the new year, I will get around to mentioning my plans lower down but for now lets look back at 2021. It started badly for the first 3 months with lockdown and the dreaded words “a short drive”. I had no idea…
treksandtors 