DARTMOOR NATIONAL PARK
In the county of Devon - just east of Cornwall
2012 dates to be advised. 8 days/7 nights £925.
Dartmoor is where Martin grew up and began his love affair with wild places...
This is a walking week of great variety. Experience going up onto the magnificent heights of Dartmoor National Park, which rises to over 2000 feet above sea level where you will be above all the trees and normal life below you - and into the depths of the beautiful deeply wooded valleys that surround it.
See early man's numerous prehistoric remains and marvel at his tenacity in making the moors his home in the distant past. See the hard granite core of the westcountry revealed in all it's magnificence - in weather beaten tors (tumbles of rock stacked one on another) of incredibly shaped granite boulders, where all kinds of wildlife find their refuge. In the valleys below, discover quiet green beauty, with trees draped in ferns, tumbling moorland streams full of granite boulders covered in moss, finding their way steeply down towards the sea.
The walks offer a great range of contrasts and are steeped in history too. With 368 square miles of national park to explore, the possibilities are endless. Even if the weather should be un-friendly on any particular day, there are many other places of interest to visit too - such as stately homes and castles, waterfalls, beautiful gardens and pretty moorland churches - not to mention such famous places as Castle Drogo, Buckland Abbey (once the the home of Sir Francis Drake and Sir Walter Raleigh) and the well known Widecombe in the Moor, with "Uncle Tom Cobbly and all...."
Your accommodation for this tour will be at the Harrabeer Country House a beautiful hotel right on the edge of the moors, where it's a short drive in our mini bus up onto the high moors above. Enjoy great cuisine and a warm friendly welcome with Michael and Amanda Willatts.
See Dartmoor through the eyes of someone who grew up here and knows where to find beauty, solitude - and all the interest that abounds where our ancestors made their homes thousands of years ago.
Please contact us to obtain a detailed and illustrated itinerary for 2012.