Walking in Dartmoor

Yesterday afternoon, when the Minerva II was still at port in Dartmouth, a group of us boarded a bus and headed up to the southeast corner of Dartmoor National Park, near Haytor, for a walk across the moor. A moor is best defined as "a vast grassy expanse with patches of horse and cow dung at unpredictable intervals." Dartmoor National Park, like all national parks in England, is actually privately owned, and it's not uncommon to see horses and cows grazing throughout the area. We walked right by them on several occasions and they (unlike the townspeople of Dartmouth) were utterly unimpressed by our presence.

On the moor we saw occasional piles of huge stones -- the formations looked natural, but actually were the remnants of granite quarrying that took place here between 1820 and 1860. Our guide told us that the original London Bridge was built with granite from the Haytor Quarry. That's the London Bridge that, when it was taken down, was purchased by some guy in the U.S. and set up in the middle of a lake in Arizona.

We also stopped at a ring of stone that is believed to be the ruins of a prehistoric, Bronze Age settlement -- we're talking 2,000 years ago.

Along the walk we saw a lot of vegetation, including ferns, gorse (a spiny sort of plant), and bell heather. We also encountered a few birds, most of which were new to me: several wheatear and a male and female stonechat.

The walk was good exercise, but when we got back to the parking lot, I quickly replaced all the calories I had burned by buying an ice cream cone. The Devon area is apparently known for its dairy products (several people said to me, "Haven't you heard of Devon cream?"), and although all ice cream usually tastes pretty much alike to me, even *I* could tell how creamy this one tasted.

On the drive up to Dartmoor, we passed near the village of Slapton, and our guide told us about its role in World War II. Apparently the U.S. pretty much took over the town in 1944 so that 15,000 troops could train here for the D-Day invasion. The townspeople were given six weeks' notice to pack up their belongings -- including furniture, crops, everything -- and find a new place to live. The area was chosen because it most resembled the area of Normandy that would be invaded. During the course of the training exercises, there was an incident in which German boats snuck up on and ambushed some American ships, and more than 900 U.S. military men and women were killed -- more than were killed on the first day of the actual D-Day invasion. According to the guide, the U.S. government for the longest time denied that the tragedy had even happened, but some local guy made it his life's work to uncover the truth, and now I think there is a memorial around here somewhere to those who died in the attack off the coast of Slapton.

Both here and in Cornwall (the region we visited on the previous day), the bus drive took place on very narrow country roads with enormously tall thick hedges right up against the road on either side. There are times when it's almost more like a one-lane road.

I don't know about you, but my brain has a tendency to take the things I'm seeing around me and, without my even trying, dredge up songs that evoke those things. Here are some of the songs that have been stuck in my brain over the past week:

--"Edinburgh Town" (a song I used to play when I hosted the WPSU Folk Show)

--"London Bridge is Falling Down"

--"Brennan on the Moor," by the Clancy Brothers

--"The Wild Mountain Thyme," also by the Clancy Brothers (it has a line about "Oh the summertime is coming / And the trees are sweetly blooming / And the wild mountain thyme / Grows around the blooming heather....")

--"Molly Malone"

I can't wait to see what my brain comes up with when we tour the sights of London.