JUNE 2023 · ADVENTURE
Dartmoor 3 day solo trek
Dartmoor, Devon
The GWR sign at Ivybridge is mounted on a platform that barely justifies the word. Two carriages worth of stopping place, Victorian canopy, and then immediately the path north into the moor. I was there with a pack and no car. Public transport as the mechanism, the walk as the point.
Dartmoor runs roughly south to north and I walked the length of it. Three days. First night the tent was down on the moor before sunset, the olive fabric catching what was left of the light. The camp photograph shows it glowing against the moorland ground — no tree, no feature, just the tent and the sky above it in the last colour of the day. By midnight: the moon, the tent illuminated from outside, the grass tufts in silhouette at the edge of the frame.
The moor on its own terms is not dramatic. It doesn't push against you. It extends. The tracks are wide and stony and go on. There was one shot of a gravel path vanishing to the horizon with nothing changing on either side — not empty, just continuous. At some point you stop looking for features and start walking in the fact of the thing.
At some point you stop looking for features and start walking in the fact of the thing.
Dartmoor (Ivybridge to Okehampton) — June 2023
The ponies were a constant. White, brown, black, in herds of varying size. One white pony close enough to fill the frame, head slightly tilted. A mare with a foal below the ridge. Two ponies nuzzling each other on the grass. They don't move for walkers. They don't register you unless you approach with food, which you shouldn't.
On the second day the woodland began — oak and mixed forest on the valley slopes, wild garlic and scattered wildflowers below the canopy. Stepping stones across clear streams. A hiker jogging toward the conifer plantation on the far side of the ford.
Day three brought mist and softer light and a rusted truck slowly going back to ground on a slope between two fields. The chassis is visible, the cab collapsed, the metal returning the colour of the moorland around it. Not abandoned dramatically. Just left.
The granite tor with the stone shelter ruin on the ridge above Okehampton. The train south. The sign at the end.
GWR Ivybridge station welcome sign with Victorian architecture
Purple foxglove flowers blooming on Dartmoor moorland
Rocky river ford with stepping stones crossing clear water
Wooden gate opening to green valley with tree-lined slopes
White Dartmoor pony portrait on open moorland
Dartmoor pony mare nursing foal on hillside
Gravel track stretching endlessly across empty moorland
Wide path through heather moorland under clear sky
Distant lone walker on long moorland trail
Granite tor rising from undulating moorland landscape
Straight gravel track across flat Dartmoor moorland
Long moorland path vanishing to clear horizon
Pathway across vast open Dartmoor landscape
Distinctive rocky outcrop tor on Dartmoor horizon
Olive tent pitched at golden sunset on moorland
Sunrise silhouetting grass tufts above camping ground
Isolated stone cottage on vast open moorland
Three cyclists in red jerseys cycling moorland road
Winding trail threading through rocky moorland outcrops
Gray pony standing among wild pony herd on moorland
Rocky moorland ridge overlooking distant conifer forest
Illuminated tent glowing under moon at pre-dawn
White pony standing beneath ancient gnarled oak tree
Weathered wooden gate on moorland slope overlooking valley
River crossing via stepping stones with woodland backdrop
Hiker jogging toward tall conifer forest on moorland
Woodland slope scattered with white and yellow wildflowers
Brown and black Dartmoor ponies grazing moorland meadow
Two Dartmoor ponies nuzzling together on moorland grass
Olive camping tent concealed in moorland vegetation
Misty moorland landscape at sunrise with soft light
Abandoned rusted truck slowly returning to moorland
Stream valley cutting through undulating moorland landscape
Granite tor with stone shelter ruin under blue sky