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Aspects of Dartmoor  
There are so many ways one can approach Dartmoor. I can remember visiting there nearly fifty years ago, as a teenager on holiday. Obviously the roads were quieter and ways were different but the almost indescribable feeling of awe and wonderment that I first experienced then, I still feel today, even when just crossing the obvious tourist routes by car. How much more then is the experience of those, lucky enough to have walked, hiked, rambled or whatever term is appropriate, along the dark and solitary paths where few have trodden. They have experienced what I have not. They know another aspect of the moor that I never will.


This does not invalidate my experience or the experience of those who tread the normal tourist routes. My first visit was like that most of the time. And, most of the time, I was delighted and thrilled by the craft shops, by the folklore, the first photographs of the tors and the stone circles, by the realisation of the history that was here.




Others find the moor in literature, both fiction and non fiction. Bookshops are filled with the various books covering the history, photographs of the emptiness and the skies and the bird life. (That reminds me. I will never forget seeing my first raven, in fact, a pair, outside of the tower of London.)There are the romantic novels, the escaping convicts in the mists, the slavering hounds. Of course, there are books on all the other aspects of Dartmoor that you can be involved in without ever opening a book. There are even books about books about Dartmoor.



We have not even mentioned tin. This is yet another aspect of the place. The tinners have gone but their towns are still thriving. One can just go around all the towns (and villages) that lie mostly around the moor's edges, although some are buried in it's heart, to discover the tinners, and the farmers and the wool. The eighteen novels of the already quoted Eden Phillpotts are each based upon a town or village on the moor and still not half of them are mentioned. As a tourist you would need a fortnight to take in properly just one important town a day.



The history of Dartmoor is inevitably a history of the towns as well but more, much, much more. For the history started long before the concept of town was known. in fact, long before man was known. it all depends on what you call history. But even if you limit yourself to man's inhabitation of Dartmoor, you can commit to more than a lifetimes study. But, if that is what you like, this is the area for you.



There is, of course, the physical activity aspect of Dartmoor. Rambling has been mentioned. There is cycling, horse riding (dare I say it, don't listen, purists) off road motoring, for a while longer, hunting, shooting and fishing, hang gliding, climbing and so forth. Each one man's meat ...
You can enjoy granite for climbing on, for painting, for learning the history of its utilisation or for making things with yourself. You appreciate, you wouldn't be the first to do that, here, on Dartmoor.




There are the industries - the quarries, the clay mines and the past industries of various metal ore mining and all the associated feeder industries. And there is, of course, farming - the cattle, sheep and ponies that make the moor visibly what it is (or at least one aspect of it). And if all this is just too much for you, there are the hotels, restaurants, inns and just plain pubs selling local produce washed down by a pint of real ale. Don't tell me Dartmoor doesn't have everything!