England #17- more moors, driving to Bath in The England Chronicles - May 2017

I’ve given up all hope of finishing this before a year has officially gone by … because we left for England on April 28, 2017 and this entry is just the first day of Week 2. Oh, well – when I’m done, it will be like the trip ending all over again, waaahhhh!! So, no rush.

SO, Saturday May 6, 2017, we started off bright and early, bidding a sad goodbye to Cornwall and Bodmin, but eagerly anticipating our next week in the adorably-named Peasedown St John, which is a few miles south of Bath, in Somerset. For this drive we went right across Dartmoor, which is desolate and moody and absolutely gorgeous. It was a really long day, as it’s probably a three hour drive if you’re taking a direct route, unlike us, and not going through the middle of Dartmoor as we did, and we also made several stops, plus taking what seemed to be an extremely insane route when we were closer to Bath. Thanks, Google GPS Who Wanted Us Dead!

It was another gloomy day on the moor, so we didn’t attempt any hiking – a good thing, as it took us so long to get to Bath. We of course took a zillion pictures.

Our fun and zippy little Fiat –

Sheepies!!!! Or, as we also kept shrieking, SHEEPERS!!!!

How cute is this?? We had to sit and wait quite some time for them to meander across the road. There are also wild ponies on Dartmoor, but sadly we didn’t see any wild ponies.

We stopped at this little place partway through the drive -the Post Office Stores at Postbridge, in Yelverton, which claims to be in the heart of Dartmoor. Now that I’ve looked it up, I see that there is a 12th century bridge – the Clapper Bridge – right across the road!!! Did we see it?? Well of course we didn’t! There is a field across the road and people were camped in the field, but the bridge must not be very obvious. The Post Office Stores were right beside a national park parking area with restrooms, which was handy. And we had veggie pasties from the Post Office Shop, which was manned by an amusingly ill-tempered couple who were bickering quietly with each other as we waited uneasily on our pasties to warm up. Sadly the pasties were not that great, but we were of course starved so they were good enough to tide us over till dinner.

The bickering couple owned this very friendly old cat- his name is Spook, and he was pleased to be fawned over by cat-lovers.

Tents in the field. There were a ton of hikers around- a lot of young kids so I think maybe it’s a popular place to take kids hiking and camping. And I’ll bet the Clapper Bridge was back there around all that gorse- there was a creek back there.

LOL, I see they offer cream tea – probably just as well we didn’t ask for that!

I forget where exactly this was, but I think we’d stopped to see if we could get food at the pub before we found the Post Office Stores. There were occasional pubs along the way, but the two we stopped at weren’t serving food. Hence the Post Office Store’s mediocre pasty.

I think these markers are for the trail- there were trails all over the place, and I really wish we’d had time – and more agreeable weather – to check some of them out. Kim’s knee was really bothering her at this point, though, so it’s probably just as well. Next time!

This was nearing the end of the moor drive – the country got less moory and more farmlandy as we went.

I actually thought I might jam this whole day into ONE ENTRY. Hahahahahaha!!! Oh, well, next time we’ll leave the moor behind and tour North Taunton, home of the fantastic Jam and Jerusalem (UK)/ Clatterford (US) TV show that Baker B and I adore, and continue our journey up to Somerset.