We had been keeping an eye on the weather for today, with the intention of heading to Dartmoor. When we got up today we checked again and it was looking good, so we took a chance, packed up and headed south. We had checked our route on the RAC website and written down the route, so it should have been fairly straightforward. The instructions were not 100% accurate, so we had a couple of interesting diversions. Still we got to Dartmoor without too much difficulty, even if the route had been given up on up by then. We had to resort to a very general map I had in the glove-box for guidance at one point.
We stopped off a few times for the kids to see and photograph the Dartmoor ponies or the free roaming sheep. The first time we stopped by a stream we saw a golden-ringed dragonfly. I did try to get some photos, but none came out particularly well. At one point we passed a car park which had been invaded by a herd of cows, which were licking the cars, nice! We did get to Badger’s Holt at Dartmeet, which is where we were aiming for, so that was good. We ate at the restaurant first and then after visiting the shop, headed off along the bank of the east Dart. All was going well until while climbing up a rock, Jo’s right thumb dislocated and then popped back. She nearly passed out, but after a while was able to move. This is the same thumb that she dislocated about 20 years ago while doing aikido, so she knew what she’d done. After a while we headed back to the car and had a cream tea before leaving for home. The sheep were just wandering out in front of the car on the way home which the kids found hilarious. There was one sheep that was licking a patch on the road and wasn’t getting out the way for us or the other oncoming car, we each took in in turns to go round the sheep while it moved it’s body into the other lane. We were going to have a meal at the Puffing Billy in Torrington, but it didn’t appear to be open, so we headed up the hill to the Clinton Arms in Frithelstock. We had a excellent meal here and would eat here again. After picking up some strapping tape at Sainsbury’s we headed back to the cottage where Jo strapped her thumb up.
Kids watched out for bats again and saw a few.