Dartmoor Forest

In Canada there are mountains. Not so in England. In the UK they have moors, which are as close as the Brits get to having mountains.

A moor is a huge barren outcropping of granite and limestone rock that nothing substantial grows on. Supposedly the moors used to be covered in forest, but it was all logged away thousands of years ago and never grew back. The moorland is capped with hundreds of exposed granite hilltops known as tors.

Today we went to Dartmoor Forest. The Brits have this habit of naming things after what used to be there. That is probably why there are no trees in Dartmoor forest. There are a lot of sheep though. And a bunch of wild horses. And several random cows. And a cat. Basically, it seems like the British just let all of their livestock wander around on the moor and eat the grass and moss that grows on it.

We thought that British driving was odd before. On the moor it was even crazier - the sheep have the right-of-way on the roads. Several times the roadway was congested because sheep were in the path. Another two times we had to stop beacause a motorist was talking to a wild horse that had stayed near the road.

First we went to Grimspound. It was the site of a Bronze Age (approximately 2000 BCE) city. We wandered among the ruins of stone huts and a picnic lunch in an ancient house. We also climbed to the top of a tor and were able to see amazing distances.

Then we went to Haytor - another tor. This one was a lot closer to the roadway so there were many more people visiting it. It was still a bit of a hike though, and both John and Troe were winded by the time we reached the base of the tor. The view from the top made the hike worth it though. This tor was a little farther south, so we could see the ocean and Teignmouth on the coast.