West Anstey Common 12th March 2016

Well the weather has been a bit better of late, so we decided to be a bit more adventurous and go walking near some water. A mistake? We’ll see. Today’s walk encompassed the area of West Anstey Common, the village of Hawkridge and the valley carved into the landscape by the River Barle. The walk began from the very middle of the common. There is a car park up there big enough for about 6 or 7 cars, if parked properly. 

The route. Clockwise this week.

When there is a hunt on it can get remarkably busy on the common as we were to discover later on. Oddly the car park isn’t marked on my usually very reliable 1:25000 map of Exmoor. It was however on my usually 'chocolate fireplace grade' satnav, which is odd. But trust me it is there, it’s free and it has a 360^o panorama that is quite breath-taking. Be careful if you have your four legged friend with you, although it looks quiet people absolutely fly along the road and don’t appear to stop for anything.

The car park before it filled up.

We headed off North East across the moor towards Hawkridge. There are plenty of wide sweeping tracks which look like cattle or pony runs. Some of these are marked on the map, others are not. It doesn’t really matter. You can see where you are heading for miles in every direction. As happens so often when you are not concentrating we veered further downhill than we meant to and had to head back uphill to pass quite a steep re-entrant (a re-entrant for the uninitiated is a small gorge carved by water usually. The opposite of a ridge). 

Deer stalking.

As a lucky consequence we crept up on a number of deer which hadn’t noticed us in the dead ground. Bea used her best stalking skills and managed to get a photo of them before they bolted.

The Deer Hunter

As we came to the edge of the common we dropped downhill via the Two Moors Way, a long distance path between Ivybridge and Lynmouth. After a climb back up the road and across a field of sheep we arrived in Hawkridge. 

Chuck modelling a bench.

It’s a very small village and has no pub so we left quickly. Not before noticing however that someone in the village was selling antler dog chews for a fraction of the commercial price. Large chews were £6 and small chews were £3. Pets at home sell these for £13.99. Chuck can destroy one of these in about six weeks. He loves them. They are a great example of recycling nature’s leftovers as they are excellent for your dog’s teeth. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much cash on me but we will definitely go back if we are in the area again.

This is a local shop for local people.

We continued down a prominent track out of Hawkridge through some farmland, so it was lead time for Chuck, he doesn’t like it but it is good training. Putting the lead on your dog and taking it off again during a walk is a good thing as it shows them that the lead doesn’t always mean the end of a walk. This in turn makes them more compliant when it comes time to put the lead on.

The River Barle.

As we dropped into the valley between the River Barle and Dane’s Brook the scenery was quite spectacular. At the bottom Chuck had a play in Dane’s Brook which we had crossed further upstream the previous week. 

We took the bridge. Chuck took the brook.

The two waterways meet here and from hereon it becomes just the River Barle, subsuming the lesser Dane’s Brook. The water was so crisp and clear even though it was quite fast flowing.  I could have stayed here all day but we had to press on. We took a track that climbed out of the valley and we had lunch on a bank at the side of a quite road.

Crystal clear water.

Walking through a field we spotted some birds circling over the valley. A quick look through the binoculars confirmed we know nothing about birds and were still none the wiser as to what they were. Having referred to my trusty bird book (we’re cool!) I think they were probably buzzards. But we're not here to be ornithologists. I think it’s enough to just appreciate these things for what they are. A rose by any other name…

Poor animal recognition by this farmer.

The next few miles of the walk were by road which is never the most fun but it did allow us to cover the ground quite quickly. What I hadn't realised before is that Dartmoor is visible from here. At first we thought it was cloud but through binoculars we could see where we walked a weeks before.

Walking down the lanes.

As we came back onto West Anstey Common we came across large rock cut in half with lots of holes in it. I remember seeing it before and meaning to check out what it was but I was tired and I forgot. Thanks to The Exmoor Runner for informing us it is a sculpture by Peter Randall Page. The other half of the boulder is in Drewsteignton on Dartmoor. They are there to celebrate the vision of Joe Turner who created the Two Moors Way. I think he was also the singer with Rainbow for a bit, or maybe I’m confusing him with someone else?

Holy rock Batman!

It was during this part of the walk that we first came across the hunt followers. Hunting is quite common on Exmoor and it apparently has quite a large following, literally. For the next hour we were having to dive out the way of 4x4s and quad bikes following the hunt totally oblivious to anyone else who was using the moor. They seem to think they have a total monopoly on the place. It didn’t make for the most relaxed of walks knowing there were large numbers of people belting over the moor with loaded weapons oblivious to all around them. I have since been told that the followers of the hunt are as much a bugbear to the hunters as everyone else but they all seemed pretty chummy as far as I could see. I’d love to hear someone else’s opinion on this. I only say what I see.

Staring longingly towards the London Inn in Molland just over the hill.

We had fully intended to go to the London Inn in Molland as part of this walk but time was pressing on. We had a dinner booked that night as we were going to see the rather excellent Wild Strawberries afterwards. They are a local covers band that perform songs in a sort of Johnny Cash/Tarantino style. Not to be confused with the Canadian pop/rock outfit of the same name. As such we had to cut our walk short and it ended up being totally dry in both senses of the word. Except for Chuck of course.

No picture of the hunt so here's a picture of a wet dog instead.

On the way home we met the hunt again. This time they hard all abandoned their vehicles on a road about five feet wide. They really have not endeared themselves to us. After about half an hour of coming and going of the long queue of traffic that had built up on a road that probably usually gets about three cars a day and we were heading for home. Overall this was a good walk that was only slightly spoilt by the actions of others. Hopefully next week normal service will be resumed and there’ll be more walking, less ranting and a pub review. Until then.