Great Mis Tor and the Jobber's Road

Monday 31st August 2020

At the end of my walk on the day before this I drove from the village of Belstone to a car park near the Dartmoor Inn and from there set off into the hills camping beside the young River Lyd. I had found a delightful valley in blissful surroundings full of gorse and heather and the following morning, after a cold night, the ground was saturated with dew, which was definitely not from rain as there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. After eating my breakfast I tried to shake off as much of the water from my tent as possible before packing it away and returning to the car park drove down the A386 road to a small car park near the tiny village of Peter Tavy. A track took me onto the moor, but I couldn’t resist soon branching off to reach the rocks of Boulters Tor before resuming my trek along the track onto the moor eventually veering north toward White Tor passing the remains of ancient settlements. Looking at the view west I thought this must have been an amazing place to live while I made my way up the rocky terrain to reach the army flag pole that sits at the top. The edge of Merrivale Range is a short distance away from the top of White Tor and a red flag flies from the top when the range is active, but not on this day so I kept going east to enter the firing range.

Soon I turned off the track at a standing stone to take a faint path through the grass across Petertavy Great Common until I reached a stream that is marked on my Ordnance Survey map as Dead Lake, where I turned south into the valley of the young River Walkham. This would make a wonderful spot for a wild camp, but it was the wrong time of day, so I crossed the river and climbed the steep slopes of Greena Ball contouring around to leave Merrivale Range and reach the top of Great Mis Tor. The top of this hill is littered with rocks and tors creating a fabulous landscape and in the good weather the views to the west were superb especially across the Tamar Estuary with the sea in the distance. As I sat near the summit looking out at the view while having my lunch I tried to decide what to do next. My walks on this holiday had not been planned in advance so I was making them up as I went and since I wanted to do another wild camp the last thing I wanted to do was head back towards my car, so I turned south. After a diversion to visit Little Mis Tor I joined a sometimes wet footpath that follows a fence to the B357 road at Rundlestone.

After my hike across the wild moor during the morning this was quite a rude intrusion of civilisation, but worse was to come as I climbed the hill past the scattered rocks of Rundlestone Tor and up to the top of North Hessary Tor where there is a transmission station with a 196 metre high mast. A trig point sits at the top of the tor, but I was unable to visit it because it was occupied by a family of small children so I continued along the path down the hill towards the village of Princetown, though its famous prison was not in sight. The village was packed with bank holiday visitors so I carefully made my way around them until I could take a heavily constructed footpath that seems to have suffered erosion from heavy rain, so perhaps it hasn’t been very well maintained, or simply wasn’t designed to cope with the enormous amounts of rain that we have had in the last twelve months. The good track is known as Jobber’s Road and is part of the Abbott’s Way that links abbeys on either side of Dartmoor. It continues for a considerable distance and provided me with easy walking across the moor past South Hessary Tor. Sadly the path was the most interesting feature in the landscape as all was bleak grassy moor with nothing to see.

Dark clouds began to cover the sky to match the bleakness of the terrain as I continued heading south passing Siward’s (or Nun’s) Cross to climb around Eylesbarrow on a deteriorating surface. As I gradually started descending I passed the remains of Eylesbarrow Tin Mine and with the terrain and path improving so did the weather until I reached a car park at the end of a road near Sheepstor. I still wasn’t sure where I was going but the excellence of the path had prompted me to keep following it as far as it went and this car park was where it had brought me. Near the car park is Gutter Tor so I climbed the steep bracken-covered slopes past the outcrops of Gutter Tor to the trig point at the highest point on the hill. Returning to the rocks of Gutter Tor I looked at my map to decide where to go next, but since it was now four o’clock I really needed to decide where I was going to camp. There are not any paths much further south to warrant continuing, though there is a good track that goes from the car park into the valley of the young River Plym so I descended the hill and took this track into the valley.

Turning east I headed up the Plym valley until I found a delightful spot beside a stream that comes out of Drizzle Combe and there I stopped to make camp. This was an interesting walk with lots of varied walking from the open moor around the River Walkham to Great Mis Tor before following an easy footpath from Princetown to Sheepstor. The weather was fantastic, except early afternoon when it clouded over, but I’ve never had such good weather in Dartmoor so I really appreciated the chance to experience the delights of a part of Dartmoor that I’d never visited before and in fabulous weather.

Cut Hill and Great links Tor

Sunday 30th August 2020

At the start of this day I got out of my tent to gorgeous blue skies and cold northerly winds. I had camped near the top of the East Dart River, right in the middle of nowhere and with no sign of civilisation anywhere. After having my breakfast I crossed the river and battled through long tussocky grass as I slowly climbed the slopes of Black Hill veering south to the col with Cut Hill with the aim of reaching the top. Cut Hill is the joint third highest hill in Dartmoor after Yes Tor and High Willhays and is the same height as Hangingstone Hill, all of which I had visited the day before. After a boggy traverse I found a neat pile of stones at the summit with an animal skull perched on top. There are no outcrops on Cut Hill, but a short distance west is Fur Tor, which is littered with rocks, so as if they were drawing me on I headed in that direction passing a line of red and white posts that mark the boundary between Merrivale Range and Okehampton Range. Fortunately the firing ranges were not active at this time so I was safely able to cross the hillside and reach these impressive rocks. I had seen them the day before as I descended into the valley and was keen to make a closer acquaintance.

The rocks at the top of Fur Tor are immense and it was really difficult to find a way up to the highest point, but despite this I circled around until I found a spot where I thought I could make an ascent and finally succeeded. Feeling pleased with myself I looked around at the tremendous views in the sunny weather and decided my next target would be the rather distant Hare Tor, which was the other side of the River Tavy. First, I needed to negotiate the complex array of rocks that defends Fur Tor before crossing boggy ground as I slowly descended into the valley to the meeting point of Amicombe Brook and Fur Tor Brook where the map indicates is Sandy Ford. However, I could not see an easy crossing of the river so it was only with difficult that I eventually managed to get across and followed the north shore passing through a mix of good, firm ground and more boggy ground to veer into the side valley of Rattle Brook.

Crossing the stream I found a trace of a path and some heather that was flowering delightfully, but it is a shame the plant is not more widespread across Dartmoor. Slowly I climbed up the hill to reach Hare Tor where I could see extensive views across the countryside to the west of Dartmoor and Sharp Tor followed soon after passing around some cattle and visiting an ancient cairn on the way. After having my lunch I ignored the large collection of rocks on Great Links Tor and instead followed almost non-existent paths over Rattlebrook Hill passing Chat Tor and across boggy ground to Higher and Lower Dunna Goat, which are also rock outcrops. Not far from there is Green Tor and the ruins of Bleak House, which must have been an amazing place with an awesome setting amongst the hills and tors. Turning my back on it I finally made my way across to Great Links Tor, which is the next highest hill in Dartmoor after Cut Hill and to celebrate I climbed to the top as I had done on all the previous hills on this walk, however once I had got to the top I saw there was another large rock tor across a gap and this was inaccessible. On the far side of that, perched on a low shelf, is a trig point, and if that is good enough for the Ordnance Survey it is good enough for me.

I visited this hill in 2007 in considerably worse weather, but despite a few clouds at lunch the good weather had continued so I made my way down to Little Links Tor, which I found to be easily accessible and soon climbed to the top. Turning around I crossed the slopes of Great Links Tor to reach a clear track that I had used in ascent in 2007 to take me gradually back down the hill. I assume this clear track was originally a tramway to serve the mine at the top of Rattle Brook and provided me with an easy descent before branching off to reach the trig point at the top of Sourton Tors. Returning to the track I started trying to find my way back to the village of Belstone where I had left my car, though this would require several hours of walking across the northern slopes of the Dartmoor upland, but initially I had to descend into the valley of the West Okement River. When I reached the bottom of the deep valley I found a delightful place with wooded surroundings such as are not found in the vast, open Dartmoor so was more appreciated than would usually be.

Unfortunately I then needed to climb steeply back out of the valley, though with good views across Meldon Reservoir below, and soon I had no path to follow as I passed over Homerton Hill and up Longstone Hill. With military tracks now appearing I was able to follow these over Black Down, which greatly eased my walking as I passed below Yes Tor and the other peaks I had climbed the day before until eventually I returned to Belstone. This was a great, epic walk around the hills in the north-west corner of Dartmoor and was really satisfying as I took in many of the rocky tors in the area. On my previous visits I hadn’t enjoyed good weather, particularly in 2007, but now I was benefiting from some awesome weather and the walk was consequently blessed.