Travelling Hopefully - Half an Otter Edition

So my choice of accommodation on Dartmoor turned out to be little short of inspired.  I stayed at The Tors pub in the village of Belstone which itself is on the moor.  The pub’s “beer garden” was literally just open space which led directly onto the moor.  The view was only improved when a bunch of Dartmoor ponies wandered up in the evening to hang out on the open space just past the pub.  The staff were very understanding and nobody asked them for ID.  Incidentally the ponies aren’t tame but they are habituated to humans.  What this means is they will let you get close to them then they will bite you.  Don’t get close to them.

Sadly I only had one full day in Belstone which conforms to pretty much every narrow streeted, stone housed stereotype you can imagine.  It’s charming, picturesque and at least on the surface tranquil.  They may have an entire “Real Housewives of Belstone” thing happening behind the scenes but if so they keep it well hidden from visitors.  Services consist of the pub, a tearoom and the village hall.  If you want anything else you need to shop further afield ie about two kilometres down the road.

Despite its almost aggressive quaintness Belstone was not my principal interest.  That would be Dartmoor itself.  Despite being a national park a decent chunk of Dartmoor is privately owned and the military also takes advantage of a lower than usual population density to undertake firearms practice on some of it.  Everybody seems reasonably relaxed about strangers wandering around photographing things however.  Even the military land is open to the public except when they’re actually conducting a live fire exercise and one suspects that’s more because the army doesn’t want to get sued rather than because they’re worried about random strangers catching bullets.

The land from the pub sloped down to a wooded river valley.  Despite the best efforts of Britain’s water companies the river managed to look crystal clear and inviting.  I padded across a brand new rustic looking bridge and began to climb the other side.  The trees rapidly vanished and soon the vegetation was scrubby with a significant amount of gorse.  The gorse was adorned with tufts of wool.  This wasn’t a fashion statement but testimony to the fact that sheep roamed the area.  Further testimony to this was the presence of sheep roaming the area.

I didn’t see an actual farm but sheep were in abundance.  Unlike the ponies they will get out of your way if you approach them.  As I climbed the scenery became more spectacular until finally by climbing up onto a stone wall (I guess there was a farm there somewhere) I was able to gaze out over a generous amount of rural Devon laid out before me.  From my vantage point I could see the farms I hadn’t noticed before and also rougher land leading upwards to a hill which glowered down on its surroundings as if it bore them a grudge.

I didn’t climb the hill, I would have liked to but by this stage of my holiday physical stamina was a dwindling resource to be carefully husbanded.  Or to put it another way I couldn’t be arsed.  The views even from my modest climb rewarded the lazy more than we deserved.  I tramped across the gorse (ouch) encountered streams, brilliant blue dragonflies and blue sheep although in the latter case this was the result of a sloppy paint job.  I presume it’s an identification technique, either that or the farmer has a kid who wants to be a hairdresser when they grow up.

I didn’t actually walk too far and my Dartmoor cup ranneth over.  The day was warm, the sun was bright so I returned to the river valley and then weaved my way through the ponies back to the pub where I sat in the sunshine and enjoyed half an Otter.

Otter is the name of a local ale.  When I ordered half a pint of it it was presented to me with the phrase “half an Otter” which made me hesitate slightly before drinking it.