English countryside hikes

Traveling by train is a great way to get around. We had Britrail passes, and the day before we headed to a new destination, I just looked up schedules online. We had a few frustrating moments, when we tried to figure out what platform we needed when we changed trains, but overall, it was a very relaxing way to travel. It was much less stressful than driving in a strange country on the wrong side of the road! So we headed down the rails to Exeter, to visit a friend from long ago. This was a friend from my college days, but David did not really know her, and neither of us knew her husband. But we had contacted her by e-mail, and she was willing to entertain us for a couple of days. Her husband Fabian picked us up from the train station, and drove us into the country about ten minutes. They have a modern house with a wonderful large garden. We drank Pimm's and cider, and got acquainted, and re-acquainted. It was the first time we stayed out in the country, and it was beautiful and peaceful.

Fabian, Jane, Jessica, and David, outside the Warren House Inn

The next day we went on an excursion to Dartmoor National Park. Remember the moor in Sherlock Holmes and Wuthering Heights? That is the kind of place this was, lots of gorse and heather, sheep, cows, and wild horses. After a good lunch and pint at the Warren House Inn, on top of the mountain, in the middle of nowhere, we hiked up and down hills to the Grimspound, a late Bronze Age settlement, where a huge circle of rocks still shows where the town wall was.

At the entrance of Grimspound

We were home in time for tea, and then went one village away, to the local pub the Red Lion for dinner. The next morning we took a brief stroll through the village. We got to see some British building techniques. Thatched roof houses have a "cob" wall, which is earthen bricks made of clay, sand, straw, and water.

Builder with pallet of cob bricks

The Grimspound in the distance