The South West Odyssey was a long distance walk.
Five like-minded people started in 2008 from the Cardingmill Valley in Shropshire and by walking three days a year finished at Start Bay on the South Devon Coast in May 2019.
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| Devon |
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| The Day 26 walk in Orange |
After a good farmhouse breakfast we left West Bowden, walked
back up out of the dip, through the field of spring lambs and turned left onto
the minor road heading towards the A361.
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| Mike, Francis, Brian and Lynne Ready to set off from West Bowden My glasses are on a seat just inside the wooden gate over Lynne's left shoulder |
After 500m the Two Moors Way detours to find a route under
the main road. Thinking it was appropriate to check my map, I found my efforts
hampered by lack of glasses. The others waited as I walked as swiftly as I
could back to West Bowden. The field of sheep greeted me like an old friend,
setting off a tremendous baa-ing, and I was relieved to find my glasses where I
thought I had left them. I set off back, still at top speed. When I hit the
rise from the farmhouse for the second time that morning I began to feel it and
I was breathing heavily by the time I made the road. Despite working hard to
give the impression of rapid movement I was definitely slowing long before I re-joined
my companions, who were waiting with more patience than I deserved.
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| Spring lambs, West Bowden |
We detoured left and then right down the edge of
Knowstone Inner Moor. At first it was a pleasant path….
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| Along the edge of Knowstone Inner Moor |
….. but as it dropped towards the Sturcombe River it became muddier
and muddier. Wooden walkways covered some of the worst of it, but there was
still plenty to wallow in.
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| Francis on Knowstone Inner Moor looking like he wishes he was somewhere else |
Slipping, sliding and sometimes sinking, we eventually reached
a drier path that took us under the A361 and then to the minor road we had
driven along to Rackenford last night.
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| Under the A361 |
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| Along the green lane |
We emerged onto a minor road. The Two Moors Way involves a lot
of road walking, at least between the moors, and we were now in for more than
4km of it. It is unusual to find such a paucity of footpaths in a very rural
area.
Road walking has occasional compensations; a short section of the verge
was covered in primroses….
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| Bank of primroses beside the road |
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| Dartmoor rising in the distance, Creacomber Cross |
Twenty minutes later we paused for coffee leaning on a gate
at Crowdhole Cross with a lovely view over the fields down to the Sturcombe
River (again). It was, though, a noisy place – those birds never shut up.
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| Coffee-time view down to the Sturcombe River, somewhere down the bottom there |
We slogged on down the apparently endless road,......
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| Endless minor road, approaching Bradford Barton |
...... past
Bradford Barton, across the Little Dart River at Bradford Mill and up the hill
beyond. Just as it started to steepen we at last turned off to follow a
footpath below Bradford Moor Plantation.
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| Below Bradford Moor Plantation |
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| The slope above the Little Dart River |
Approaching a gate in a fence I became aware that Mike appeared
to be straddling a sheep. In Wales we call that 'foreplay' but he claimed he was
freeing the ewe, disentangling its head from the wire fence. He stuck to his
story and for the defence he might point out that he has previous with animal
rescue, a lamb hauled from a pit on the Brecon Beacons and the freeing of a
string entwined magpie in Somerset spring readily to mind.
We had to sacrifice much of the height gained earlier to
cross an unnamed tributary before climbing through Yeo Copse and across the
fields to Witheridge.
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| Up through the Yeo Copse |
With just over a thousand inhabitants, Witheridge was by far
the biggest settlement we had encountered since Watchet, itself hardly a
metropolis.
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| Witheridge |
It was just warm enough to sit outside the Mitre to enjoy a
couple of pints of lunch.
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| A pint of lunch at the Mitre, Witheridge |
In Witheridge the Two Moors Way picks its way between the
houses then drops across a field to a stream. Like most fields the muddiest
section was around the gate.
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| Brian and Mike navigate round the mud |
After another 'up' followed by a steep 'down' we reached a footbridge
over the River Dalch from where a wooded climb took us up to Washford Pyne.
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| The climb up to Washford Pyne |
The waters of the Dalch, like the Little Dart find their way
into the Taw and thence to the north Devon Coast. At yesterday’s start, much
further north, we had crossed the Barle, which flows into the Exe and on to the
south Devon coast. Tracing the watershed through the deeply folded Devon
countryside is not easy.
St Peter’s Church at Washford Pyne looked a handsome
building to me. The Devon County Council website quotes from a 1954 book
entitled Devon by W.G. Hoskins ‘Washford
Pyne church was wholly rebuilt in 1883-7 and is of no interest.’ Ah well.
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| St Peter's, Washwood Pyne |
The pattern of ups and downs continued. From Washford Pyne the
path through Washford Wood started level,…
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| Through Washford Wood |
… but soon descended to a stream,….
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| The bridge at the bottom of Washford Wood |
….. then it was up and over, and repeat, to the hamlet of
Lower Black Dog.
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| Lower Black Dog |
The village of Black Dog was a few hundred metres to our
east, but we would return there in the evening to dine at the pub,
unsurprisingly called the Black Dog Inn.
Black Dog lies on the highest ridge between Exmoor and Dartmoor,
giving views of both moors at once. We passed through Blue Anchor on the
Somerset coast last year, and this may well be another case of a village taking
its name from its pub. Black Dog grew up round a well and a story tells of how
the tunnel running from the well to Berry Castle, an earthwork a mile to the
south, was once guarded by a ghostly black dog. Sadly, no such tunnel ever
existed and the story sounds suspiciously like a later invention to explain a
name already in use.
The undulations continued, as we first walked west then south
to our B&B. There were no great heights to scale, the ridge at Black Dog is
a little over 200m, but between the ridges the path had a way of dropping quite steeply
and then, at what should be the bottom of the valley, there was a further descent to the stream
itself which had spent several millennia digging itself deeper and deeper into its bed.
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| About to drop down to the next stream |
On one of the high points we passed an isolated barn containing
the remains of a threshing machine that had once been dragged from farm to farm
behind a traction engine. Several years' restoration work was available for an
enthusiast, but I would not know where to start. Mike gave one of the wheels an
exploratory turn, and it moved surprisingly easily. That was when the pigeons nesting
inside decided to complain.
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| Mike inspects the remains of a steam powered threshing machine |
By the time we had finished examining it, Francis was
dwindling into the distance on the way down to the next stream.
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| Francis dwindles into the distance |
We reached the B&B, an isolated farmhouse, about 4.30. The
farmyard was something of a contrast to the neat and orderly world of West
Bowden Farm the previous evening.
Our stay with Brian and Hilary in Torquay last week had
provided an insight into the worlds of collecting and hoarding. Brian is, among
other things, a walker while Hilary is a collector. She likes to cover every
surface with objets d'art, mainly of far eastern origin, many of very high
quality. Together we had visited Greenway, the former home of Agatha Christie.
Christie and her daughter also filled their house, perhaps over-enthusiastically.
The National Trust have kept it as it was, perched on the cusp between
collecting and hoarding. Tonight's friendly landlady had no truck with ‘the cusp,’
she was a confirmed hoarder; you always had to move something to sit down.
The welcome was warm and genuine, but she was elderly so it
did not include twenty-first century ‘necessities’ like Wi-Fi, nor indeed late twentieth
century ‘necessities’ like mobile phone signals, en suite bathrooms,
televisions, tea making equipment or even heating. 'I don’t light the wood
burners because there's jackdaws nesting in the chimneys and I don't like to
disturb them.' Our stay was appropriately inexpensive, but I suspect she was in business more for company than the money.
Later Brian nobly drove us back to the similarly welcoming
but more up to date (free Wi-Fi) Black Dog for a pleasant evening involving food
and beer – two of my favourites.
The South West Odyssey (English Branch)
Day 1 to 3 (2008);Cardingmill Valley to Great Whitley
Day 4 to 6 (2009) Great Whitely to Upton-on-Severn via the Malvern Ridge
Day 11 (2011) Perrott's Brook to the Round Elm Crossroads
Day 12 (2011) Walking Round Stroud
Day 13 (2012) Stroud to North Nibley
Day 14 (2012) North Nibley to Old Sodbury
Day 15 (2012) Old Sodbury to Swineford
Day 16 (2013) Along the Chew Valley
Day 17 (2013) Over the Mendips to Wells
Day 18 (2013) Wells to Glastonbury 'The Mountain Route'
Day 19 (2014) Glastonbury to Langport
Day 20 (2014) Along the Parrett and over the Tone
Day 21 (2014) Into the Quantocks
Day 22 (2015) From the Quantocks to the Sea
Day 23 (2015) Watchet, Dunster and Dunkery Hill
Day 24 (2015) Dunkery Beacon to Withypool
Day 25 (2016) Entering Devon and Leaving Exmoor
Day 26 (2016) Knowstone to Black Dog on the Two Moors Way
Day 27 (2016) Morchard Bishop to Copplestone
Day 28 (2017) Down St Mary to Drewsteignton
Day 29 (2017) Drewsteignton to Bennett's Cross
Day 30 (2017) Bennett's Cross to Lustleigh
Day 31 (2018) Southwest Across the Moor from Lustleigh
Day 32 (2018): South to Ugborough
Day 33 (2018): Ugborough to Ringmore
Day 34 (2019): Around the Avon Estuary to Hope Cove
Day 35 (2019): Hope Cove to Prawle Point
Day 36 (2019): Prawle Point to Start Bay: The End
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The Last Post
That's All Folks - The Odyssey is over
Day 25 (2016) Entering Devon and Leaving Exmoor
Day 26 (2016) Knowstone to Black Dog on the Two Moors Way
Day 27 (2016) Morchard Bishop to Copplestone
Day 28 (2017) Down St Mary to Drewsteignton
Day 29 (2017) Drewsteignton to Bennett's Cross
Day 30 (2017) Bennett's Cross to Lustleigh
Day 31 (2018) Southwest Across the Moor from Lustleigh
Day 32 (2018): South to Ugborough
Day 33 (2018): Ugborough to Ringmore
Day 34 (2019): Around the Avon Estuary to Hope Cove
Day 35 (2019): Hope Cove to Prawle Point
Day 36 (2019): Prawle Point to Start Bay: The End
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The Last Post
That's All Folks - The Odyssey is over
First, I can confirm that Mike was indeed rescuing a sheep who had pushed her head through the wire fence as I was with him. It was now held within it, its squared wire structure just the right size for a mishap.
ReplyDeleteSecond, its also worth recording that the beer at The Mitre was called Twiglets Tipple. The landlord reassured us that the statement on the beer clip "Brewed by Coors" was wrong; the beer itself was named after the pub cat and was a very good brew.
Third, these comments have been written as a result of a complaint from the blogmaster if its correct to call him that.
This day will be remembered more thanks to comments about 'the Acorns' and 'Mike's activities' rather than the quality of the walking. Mud or road are not the two alternatives that make a good day. However, our first sighting of Dartmoor and what that will bring was a highlight. Brian
ReplyDeleteI did this walk on Tuesday (23rd August). It was a hot day, so it was very good to have the sections of the walk that went through woods, and that was part of the delight of descending to one of the many valleys, that they tended to be wooded for some shade. We particularly liked the green lane.
ReplyDeleteWe too, had to return to West Bowden farm - I had left the cheque book. I had no idea though, until we arrived at our destination, which luckily I had mentioned at West Bowden. Mrs Bray had phoned our host so she was able to tell us, and we drove back at the end of the day to pick it up. The lambs have grown. That drive, mainly along single track roads, was rather exciting, as all the farms had been madly harvesting, and we kept meeting tractors with trailers. Also motorbikes and horse boxes.
There was less mud at Knowstone Inner Moor than you had, but we were glad of the board walks. The woodland and the stream were lovely, but contrasted with the noise of the road, which wasn't so pleasant.
Co-incidentally, we stopped at Crowdhole Cross for elevenses as well - plums rather than coffee. It was probably the point when the road walking had got particularly tedious, and for us, the shade of the tree was welcome. Good views too. It was good to see Dartmoor, then, climbing out of Witheridge later, there was a really good view back to the village and way beyond to Exmoor in the distance, so we got a sense of how far we had come.
For me, the worst climb up out of a valley was the last one, diagonally across a long field full of clover almost up to my knees in places.
Like you, we had been told that everyone does the Two Moors Way south to north, and like you, we didn't meet anyone coming the other way. I did, however, meet a young man near Black Dog who was walking north to south, and was just having a rest.