Tuesday, May 15, 2018

More moor

[Once again, I am having difficulties getting photos from my phone into my blog. The choice is to spend hours figuring it out, and maybe not resolving it at all, or post. I choose the latter. If I can resolve the problem, I will repost with pics.]

I last left you in Lostwithiel, over an ale, as I remember. Since then, I have made my way to Belstone, just on the north edge of Dartmoor. I dipped my toes in Dartmoor, literally, the day I walked from Haye Down near Milton Abbot to Lydford. It was only about two miles or so of the day’s path. Though I was no more than 100 yards into the moor, tended fields and pastures to my left, I could feel the emptiness near me. The water draining off the moor created slow running streams, most of which were easy enough to step stones across, but I did splash my boots through a few.

Earlier that morning, I left Haye Down where I spent a wonderful afternoon and evening at Oakwood with Jacqui and Tony, hosts that seemed more like old friends, and with a Jack Russel terrier, Will I Am, curled up on the couch next to me, sleeping soundly as I rubbed him behind his ear.  I forgot how calming that could be. 

As I approached Bren Tor, a volcanic mound, the squat 13th century Michael church at it’s summit, the morning mist began to clear, a weak sun struggling through the overcast. Bren Tor lies on the ley line that also runs through Glastonbury Tor, the destination of this year’s walk. Both have edifices dedicated to Michael, as so many high places in the Christian tradition are. There are remnants of Iron Age fortifications at the base of Bren Tor and a number of legends about the church’s origins. The most evocative recalls that the devil, so as to discourage the building of a church at its base, would take the stones laid during the day and throw them to the top of the Tor each night. So the practical people of the little hamlet decided if Satan was going to make it easy for them, they may as well erect the church at the more preferable site atop the Tor. 

I made my way up a farm track, then a pasture, and finally, stone steps. From the top of the steps and walking around the church on a narrow path, partly with guard rails around, the downslope hugging the walkway, the hilly but tame Devon countryside was laid out before me, and Cornwall beyond. On the other side, the moor. 

Perhaps those who live close by and walk Dartmoor frequently don’t see the high moor as a brooding and wild presence, though they do advise caution, especially for those that do not know it well. Aside from the distinct possibility of not seeing another person over tens of miles of walking, there are dangers from peat bogs and quakers, green moss growing over water that has accumulated in hollows in the granite undersurface, that can shift and sink under the weight of a walker. 

I had been looking forward to crossing the high moor, one of the highlights of my planning, though I was cautious of it, and after Bodmin even more so. The guidebook I am using recommends a short hike and a stay in Lydford before the twelve mile crossing and my hosts in Belstone emailed me details of an easier route entering the moor further north near Sourton, a route with fewer and lower ascents. My heavy backpack has not bothered me at all on this trip, on level ground, that is. Scurrying over stiles, wading through muddy pastures, and walking up hill has been another matter entirely. I’ve done a lot of each. So I revised my plan accordingly. 

The following morning I set out on the bicycle route to Sourton, an old railway line now mostly paved over. The temperature was relatively mild, approaching 50 F, and a full sun brightened the day and my spirit. But by the time I reached Sourton, the temperature had dropped to the high thirties, the winds picked up, the sky clouded over and and a band of darker clouds threatened rain. The forecast warned me as much but the change had been forecast for mid afternoon. I had hoped to beat it. It was looking as if I wouldn’t. I had to make the choice at Sourton to cross or to continue on the path to Okehampton and then down a sheltered road to Belstone. I pulled on my watch cap and gloves, zipped up my base layer and my sweater, donned my wind breaker, and chose the latter.

The weather changes rapidly over the moors, another of the challenges for the unwary solitary walker, but in this event the changes I perceived were only cautionary; the rain indeed waited until evening. One could not have guessed that this would be the case from the conditions I experienced while taking the more sheltered route to Belstone. Disappointed, I made my way to my night’s lodging, a nice location in Belstone just on the edge of the moor. When I arrived, there were a half dozen cows - a shorter, shaggy haired breed - rooting around in the garden, turning grass to mud and plants to cud. Two of my hosts’ daughters were trying unsuccessfully to shoo them back out the driveway; someone had forgotten to close the gate. Hiking poles have many uses - including prodding cattle, I discovered. 

The girls got me settled in my room. When Theresa arrived with some supplies for my breakfast, I asked if I might stay an extra night should I find someone willing to walk with me and show me the moor. So stay in Belstone I did after Theresa’s husband Bob, just back from solo hiking in the mountains of Crete, offered to accompany me. The next morning, Bob , a twelve year old chocolate lab named Dillon, and I started out of Belstone on a trail of peaty turf that gave way to a rocky path over which water from the moor drained, then back again onto undifferentiated peat, climbing up to the top of Winter Tor, then Knattaborough Tor and, finally Oke Tor, about three miles into the moor, each top successively higher. To our right was Scarey Tor and the High Willhays, the highest point in Devon. The conversation between Bob and I flowed smoothly. The weather was perfect, the walk not taxing, despite the climb. I had shed my heavy pack in favor of a very light stowable day pack and carried only a windbreaker and some water. The walk was easy and enjoyable, quite benign. All my concerns seemed illusory. But one only need consider that the Royal Marines train here and for good reasons. This would be an entirely different experience alone, with my heavy pack, or in bad weather.

It is lambing season and the newly born were everywhere. Pasturing rights - and the right to cut peat for fuel, no longer practiced - are essentially hereditary, granted, I imagine centuries ago. We saw two new lambs and their ewe, afterbirth still trailing behind her, the lambs only hours old. The afterbirth would likely be a treat for the foxes and there was evidence along the way that some lambs had been already, scraggly and matted wool littering the ground. 

Almost all the lambs we saw were black with a splash of white across each ear, near to its head, and we commented how prolific that ram must be and wondered what he looked like as none of the ewes had similar markings. It was all somewhat pastoral, but, as we descended, Bob pointed out a bog ahead and to our right, the water glistening in the sun. There are dangers here.

That night I ate at the local pub, the Tors Inn, as I had the night before. It was far more crowded: the Beltranes and the Cogs and Wheels, two groups of Morris dancers, were going to perform just outside the pub. Why Morris? I was told it comes from Moorish, so that means Spain, and that probably leads to the pagan roots: Celts occupied parts of the Iberian peninsula, Bretagne, England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland. 

Two very different styles of dancing, both of pagan origin, the Beltranes, men and women, blackfaced and in goth attire, banging sticks, high stepping and howling, meant to frighten people or spirits. I am not certain which. And the Cogs and Wheels, women in brightly colored clothes of tied cloth and ribbons probably evolving from the celebration of the planting or harvest season, or maybe the goddesses of natural forces, water and wells, wind and rain. Back in the pub after the dancing, the two groups alternated with bawdy songs, songs of hard life and early death, and just good old humor. 

If this post seems somewhat at odds with my usual writing, I agree. Not every experience has a deeper meaning. I will point out, however, that staying in Belstone, the friendliest little village I encountered, meant skipping over yet another section of the route. This is not, however, a pilgrimage like my three arrivals at Compostela, or my walk to Rome, where the rigor of walking every step of the way, despite the few lapses referred to in my posts along the Via Francigena, contributed to the emergence of my walking meditations and the important insights into self that I derived from them. In fact, skipping a few stages on the Via Francigena also led to important realizations about myself, how guilty I felt for doing so. Well, a lot of the heavy lifting has already been done culminating in the breakthrough realization I had a year ago that morning I walked to San Gimignano. Still, I felt the obligation to myself, and frankly to all of you who I told I would be walking to Glastonbury. But I was also channeling some friends and good acquaintances, and one of those special people one meets on these types of journeys, who have all told me that at this stage of life, one should only do what is fun, what they enjoy. That’s harder for me to do than you might imagine.

Though I will say of my two days in Belstone, I really did have fun. 

1 comment:

  1. And the highlight: your walk with a 12 year old labbie!

    ReplyDelete