I've become a social outcast during the hours of daylight
Last weekend (bloody hell, shows how far behind I am with my blogging at the moment) I had a few days with absolutely nothing to do. The weather was gorgeous, so I thought I should take advantage of the situation and spend some time outside. I decided to walk across Dartmoor from Ivybridge to Okehampton which is about 55km as the crow flies but as anybody who has walked on the moors before will know, it is impossible to walk in anything resembling a straight line over much of the moor, so the actual distance is much further. I camped for the night in a pub's campsite in Princetown and enjoyed a few too many 'Jail Ales' while reading my book in the corner of the pub. How very pleasant
Here are some pictures....
Looking south down onto Ivybridge at the beginning of the climb
"I was going to the worst place in the world and I didn't even know it yet. Weeks away and hundreds of miles up a river that snaked through the war like a main circuit cable - plugged straight into Kurtz. It was no accident that I got to be the caretaker of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz's memory - any more than being back in Saigon was an accident. There is no way to tell his story without telling my own. And if his story really is a confession, then so is mine."
A rare bit of path, the majority of the walking is across very rough moor land of which most is normally bog. At least with all this hot dry weather we have had, a lot of the boggy patches had dried up.
===================================
Now after the first day of walking for 8 hours in direct 30+oC sunshine I had managed to survive without any burns. On the second day a slightly longer walk combined with a slightly less covering t-shirt resulted in some serious sunburn, but it was the tan lines that are the real problem. Two tips for the future:
1.) Wear your shortest pair of shorts, not longest if you are going to be in the sun for two days straight.
2.) If you are wearing walking boots you WILL have the most embarrassing tan lines 6 inches above your ankles, which means you can't wear shorts for the next two weeks without looking like a complete tit!
Here are some pictures....
Looking south down onto Ivybridge at the beginning of the climb
"I was going to the worst place in the world and I didn't even know it yet. Weeks away and hundreds of miles up a river that snaked through the war like a main circuit cable - plugged straight into Kurtz. It was no accident that I got to be the caretaker of Colonel Walter E. Kurtz's memory - any more than being back in Saigon was an accident. There is no way to tell his story without telling my own. And if his story really is a confession, then so is mine."
A rare bit of path, the majority of the walking is across very rough moor land of which most is normally bog. At least with all this hot dry weather we have had, a lot of the boggy patches had dried up.
===================================
Now after the first day of walking for 8 hours in direct 30+oC sunshine I had managed to survive without any burns. On the second day a slightly longer walk combined with a slightly less covering t-shirt resulted in some serious sunburn, but it was the tan lines that are the real problem. Two tips for the future:
1.) Wear your shortest pair of shorts, not longest if you are going to be in the sun for two days straight.
2.) If you are wearing walking boots you WILL have the most embarrassing tan lines 6 inches above your ankles, which means you can't wear shorts for the next two weeks without looking like a complete tit!
posted by Nurton at 9:10 pm
3 Comments:
I remember doing this walk with you and Stu a few years back - wasnt that when we camped in the pub?
A few corrections young Timothy....
It was you, Rich (aka Robbie Williams), and me. Stu was still in his "walking on Dartmoor without a support team is 'fool hardy'" stage.
We camped in a pub's beer garden in Okehampton on the second night because we missed the last bus not in Princetown.
When we did it despite the weather being tropical in Exeter it was raining and foggy on the moors, nothing like that this time, just sun, sun sun!
Yeah, i knew it was after we missed the bus, and having a robbie lookalike probably helped our chances of the barmaid being nice to us...
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