Saturday, July 11, 2015

Belstone



If the flags are flying (as they are here) it means no access to much of the moor, as the army are firing. And sure enough, I could hear firing way off in the distance. You can still walk parts of Dartmoor, but if you try heading for, say, Yes Tor, the road will be blocked by the army. This was just a short evening walk. The Tor in photo one is Watern Tor and the Hurlestone, which is about three miles southeast of where I was standing when I took the photo. The pointy hill with the hut and flag is the aptly named Steeperton Tor, underneath of which is the cleave where the river Taw first becomes a proper river, after gathering itself from the hills to the south of here. Below the hill is the Taw plain.

2 comments:

aferrismoon said...

Good feeling of the expanse of the place and its apparent desolation. The light, or lack of it, in the first is interesting with the sky and the land almostthe same tone.

Do armies actually use artillery anymore - surely technology has improved to the point where they can stop hogging so much land.

cheers

john said...

I have a feeling that the army do still use artillery up on Dartmoor. There are emplacements built up there and you do get the distant sound of it. The army are all over the place around here, as we also have Lympstone commando base just down the road, they set themselves up on the commons here whenever they feel like it. We used to meet the young squaddies in the local shop in a place we used to live. They'd go in and buy ten fags and sweets and penny chews, they were children really.

Cheers!