19th March 2016 Dulverton to Molland

Slightly different this week, it’s just me and my dawg. Bea hurt herself in college playing bouncy netball. I believe the Americans call it Bear-skit-bahl or something. Anyway, she went over on her ankle and so couldn’t come. She’s at home with her foot up on some ice. As a consequence of my not being able to take selfies, there will be lots of landscapes and Chuck pictures this week. On the plus side there was a pub stop. Some of this walk encompasses bits of the previous walk as I wanted to go to the pub we never got to the week before. I’ll try and gloss over those bits you’ve already seen.

Figure of eight. Follow the arrows.

“Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. And the nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression.”
John Harvey Jones, businessman (1924–2008)

As I was on my own this week I thought I’d try something a bit different. Instead of planning an exact route I just pick a start point and a destination then navigated my way there on the ground. This walk starts from a small car park just North East of Dulverton. It’s a little awkwardly shaped and a bit of poor parking can seriously hamper the number of cars you can get in. There’s also a rather bad ground clearance as the underside of my car discovered. Don’t say anything, it’s on finance. But as usual, it is free to park there.

The car park. Note chassis scraping stones.

Our destination was the London Inn in Molland about six or seven miles away depending on which way we went. We set off along River Barle down a wide stone road. The path is quite upsy-downsy and sometimes strays some distance from the river but it gives lots of different perspective of the water. The water is beautifully clear and there are lots of mini waterfalls. This path leads to where the river meets Dane’s Brook where we crossed the previous week. This time however we took the lower path. Well, I did anyway. Chuck decided to take to the water for most of the way.

Not exactly Niagra Falls, but very pretty.

The map showed that we would have to cross a ford up ahead at some point. There is always the slight apprehension that the water will not be as shallow as you are expecting, especially as this was a bridleway for horses and not a footpath. A horse will happily wade through deeper water than a person. Well I assume at least never having ridden a horse. When I got there it was good news and bad. The bad news was the water was far deeper than my boots were tall. The good news was that there was a bridge right next to the ford which wasn’t marked on the map. Result. Remember, a map is only as accurate as when it was made. The ground changes, so change your maps regularly.

Bridges are better than fords.

Climbing out of the steep sided valley the ground began to transition from woods to open moorland. It was a lovely pale yellow and quite stark and bleak in a beautiful kind of way after being in the lush green wood. This was East Anstey Common. Seeing as we did West Anstey Common last week, I thought I’d try and collect the set. Unfortunately, there is no North and South Anstey Common. We headed along some of the road we went along last week but this time without a constant stream of racing 4x4s, which made for a much more relaxing walk. We headed south and went along a small road that turned into a footpath. This went through what used to be a wood according to the map but had recently been heavily logged. The bridleway had also been diverted but this actually made the route shorter. This time the two fords across the water were easily passable with a pair of sturdy walking boots or a good leap.

Transition from wood to moor.

Through the trees we came out on a rather lovely clearing which led up a hill. From here you could see quite the community of large houses dotted around the countryside. It certainly looked like an appealing place to live. The track bizarrely took us directly through someone’s garden. Then along a very long drive back to the road. There appeared to be quite an ancient looking farming system going on in this area with the earth showing signs of work from long ago. It was quite Wiltshire-esque.

Nice place to live.

Down the road another footpath took us across some fields and then we would be in Molland. Well that was the idea but someone had put some rather excitable horses in a field that the footpath goes through. I personally don’t mind horses but Chuck got kicked by a cow when he was a puppy and to him everything big with four legs is a dog. A big dog. So there was a bit of a standoff at the gate. The horses were happy to get their noses rubbed but Chuck was having none of it. He was barking, pulling on the lead and getting quite upset. So we backtracked across the field and got onto the road via a gate that was secured with a good old Devon latch. Some string in a bow.

Chuck in a rare moment of stasis.

Molland is a tiny little place. It’s a farmyard with a few houses and a church. I almost mistook the pub for one of these houses. It really doesn’t look very pub like from the outside, to the point where it looked like it may have closed a few years ago. I was quite disappointed until I saw the lights were on. Not only had it not closed down, it was open. Inside it looked a lot more like a pub. A very well stocked pub. It was possibly larger inside than the external dimensions really allowed. Spooky.

A memorial rock to rugby player Froude Hancock on West Anstey Common.

The landlady immediately fell head over heels in love with Chuck. She had her own German Shepherd and so began a long conversation stretching from dogs to gin. This was a good gin bar. I tried Wicked Wolf, an Exmoor gin I’d seen advertised recently. It was alright but it was a touch citrusy, like there was too much lemon squeezed in it. After a few drinks I realised we had spent far too long in the pub and really needed to start heading back to the car. Across a few field I found a nice place to stop for lunch, watching some lambs gambolling around. Chuck was fascinated. Then followed an hour of crossing the moor. Navigation was not really required as we could see for miles in every direction.

Chuck keeps watch of the sheep while I get my scran on.

Again the path back to Dulverton was blocked by more horses. This caused me to take a detour along a footpath which just crept off the bottom of the map. Of course the bit that was off the map was slightly more confusing than I expected. There were two footpaths in completely the wrong direction and a farmyard in the way of the right direction. With no sign of a path through the farmyard I decided to take the road, which I hoped would lead to Dulverton. Thankfully it did, although I still have no idea where the other footpath went.

So close to having a clean dog for the car.

I’d have loved to have stopped for one more in Dulverton, which has some great pubs but time was cracking on. We took a quick excursion to the top of the hill in Burridge Wood to see the hill fort. To be honest though, it’s not really worth the trip. Any remnants of the fort are long gone. There is a ditch which might possibly have been part of it but all in all I was fairly underwhelmed. This walk was an interesting exercise in orienteering from one point to another. It could possibly have ended in disaster but that’s half the fun.  Have you ever set off anywhere having no idea where you’re going? Let us know how it went. Until next time.