6. Dartmoor

When: July 24, 2015
Where: Dartmoor National Park, England
With: Emma and Gemma

As I continued my weeklong travels through the UK, next up was a weekend trip to the southwestern portion of England with the girls. We headed to the county of Devon to explore two of England's national parks: Dartmoor and Exmoor. First up was Dartmoor, on the southern coast of Devon. 

The first thing to note about an English national park is that they aren't bound by any formal entrance, so it's hard to tell when you've actually entered one. They're just designated land cared for by the national park system. As a result there's homes, businesses, and towns set among gorgeous countryside. Prime real estate!

Our first stop just inside the northeast section of Dartmoor was Castle Drogo. This is actually the last castle to be built in England, completed in 1930. However, the original structure wasn't built to be watertight. So now, it's undergoing a massive 6-year renovation. The photos of the exterior weren't particularly great as a result. 

And as if the exterior wasn't odd enough, the interior was one of the stranger castles I've ever been in. As if to make up for the renovations and construction, certain rooms of the castle were decorated like an interactive art museum. There was one room with massive bean bag chairs and clouds projected on the ceiling. Another room appeared to be a bedroom but was overgrown with moss and plants, showing what would have happened to the castle if it wasn't fixed. It was very odd and trippy. Not what we expected to see in a castle, but made us laugh nonetheless. 

However, after the inside experience, we returned to normalcy when we took a wander through the gardens. While I couldn't pull my camera out too much in the rain, we had a lovely time walking the grounds. 

After the castle, we found a quaint little pub to warm up with some lunch. I always love taking photos of the places where we have a great pub lunch or afternoon tea. And after the waterlogged morning, this one was all the cozier.

Despite the pouring rain, we decided to get on with our exploration of Dartmoor as best we could and visit what makes Dartmoor unique: the tors. Tors are granite rock formations that look like layers of rock piled on top of each other. They are dotted throughout the park and are named after various things. The only hard part is trying to find directions to a particular tor, given they aren't necessarily on a main roads and may require some hiking to get to them. 

So off we went in search of one particular tor. The rain was pouring, and as often happens on English backroads, the car lane became thin and the hedgerows grew high (hard to believe they are two-way). There are no shoulders here, and we were very much hoping there wouldn't be anyone coming at us from the other direction.

We felt like we were in Jurassic Park. Particularly, the scene where Newman is trying to escape the park in the storm. And ironically, just as we were joking about it, we came upon a gate. The gate wasn't particularly terrifying, just an extension of a fence. And it didn't say not to enter, only to shut the gate after going through. However, what exactly was this gate holding in?? 

Not to be deterred, and to continue this brought-to-life movie experience, I jumped out of the car to open the gate in the mud and pouring rain. The car drove through, I shut the gate behind us, and we continued on. Now we were really curious what came next. 

After driving about half a mile post-gate, we hit a particularly tight spot in the road and still didn't seem anywhere near a tor. So we paused for a moment to collect our bearings. Suddenly, the bushes just in front of the car began shaking and a nose slowly poked its way out, followed by two massive horns. In that moment, the largest bull any of us had ever seen emerged and was just staring at us. We laughed for a second, but our laughter soon faded as the bull made a rush for the middle of the road and came to a standstill in front of our car. It took less than a second for Emma to say "Nope!", kick the car into reverse and speed backwards down the country lane until out of eyeshot of the beast. 

Needless to say, we never found the tor we were looking for, but we did complete our Jurassic Park experience. 

Thankfully, after abandoning our quest, we were able to find open road and fields, and the tors that came with them. The first one we happened to find was Hound Tor, one of the most famous. Legend has it that the tor was created when a pack of hounds were turned to stone. 

It was crazy to see how quickly the fog was rolling in and out, covering the rock formations to the point that they were undetectable. Same photo as above, just a few minutes later.

It is also said that this tor inspired the Sherlock Holmes story The Hound of the Baskervilles.

The rest of our afternoon was spent driving around the park, in hopes of clearer weather that sadly never came. While the views were still gorgeous, I'm sure they'd go on for miles without the fog blocking the way. 

However, we did find a few more tor formations.

Saw this sign that should have been on the gate from earlier.

We did eventually get out of the car to do a touch of hiking. Despite not being dressed for the weather, we made the most of it. 

We even got to see a herd of wild horses in the mist. Yet after our earlier experience, we decided not to test those staring eyes and moved ourselves along. 

Even though it was a cold and rainy day, I thought Dartmoor was stunning. In fact, it only made me want to go back more to see what the fog and mist were hiding. Just as long as there are no more cow-a-saurus incidents next time.