Walking the Dart Valley
Nov. 28th, 2014 06:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sawylNot feeling at all well this morning but fortified by tea & toast & painkillers and equipped with packets & packets of hankies, I joined the parents to walk the Dart Valley Trail from Totnes to Dittisham.
Dodging around the building work on the west bank, we joined up with the trail and headed south along the river for a couple of miles. Although it wasn't terribly muddy — not, at least, by the standards set by the trail closer to Cornworthy — pater still managed to fall in the mud while trying to read the history of a cottage on the hill on his iPad. A couple of miles south of Totnes, because the walk isn't all that far, even though it goes up and down a lot, we stopped for a few crappy phone camera photos:
At this point we turned in-land, towards Ashprington where we paused in the bus shelter to decide where to go next and found a missing pair of red gloves — it was obviously my parents' sort of place because the gloves were almost identical to mater's usual sort. We followed the road down to Bow and, on pater's instructions, turned left towards a crossing over the Harbourne only to discover it was a set of stepping stones over a very fast flowing river. Both mater and I refused point-blank to attempt the crossing, stopped pater from doing something foolish, crossed the river at the nearby bridge.
We then followed the road round to Tuckenhay, which my parents thought was empty but I thought was merely the victim of Friday afternoon quietness, and then followed the path along a seriously boggy section close to the bank of the Harbourne:
We walked along the river bank for a while before turning in-land again to get to Cornworthy, where we decided to call it a day after a rather pathetic five miles — albeit with many ups and downs. As we came up from the river we saw a couple of buzzards riding the strong winds over the top, their presence alarming a flock of birds hidden the woods who flew off trilling alarm calls, not that the buzzards seemed at all interested in chasing them. On reaching Cornworthy church, we got a taxi back to Totnes, stopped for a cream tea — a reward for skipping lunch — and drove back to town through the crawling traffic.
Dodging around the building work on the west bank, we joined up with the trail and headed south along the river for a couple of miles. Although it wasn't terribly muddy — not, at least, by the standards set by the trail closer to Cornworthy — pater still managed to fall in the mud while trying to read the history of a cottage on the hill on his iPad. A couple of miles south of Totnes, because the walk isn't all that far, even though it goes up and down a lot, we stopped for a few crappy phone camera photos:
At this point we turned in-land, towards Ashprington where we paused in the bus shelter to decide where to go next and found a missing pair of red gloves — it was obviously my parents' sort of place because the gloves were almost identical to mater's usual sort. We followed the road down to Bow and, on pater's instructions, turned left towards a crossing over the Harbourne only to discover it was a set of stepping stones over a very fast flowing river. Both mater and I refused point-blank to attempt the crossing, stopped pater from doing something foolish, crossed the river at the nearby bridge.
We then followed the road round to Tuckenhay, which my parents thought was empty but I thought was merely the victim of Friday afternoon quietness, and then followed the path along a seriously boggy section close to the bank of the Harbourne:
We walked along the river bank for a while before turning in-land again to get to Cornworthy, where we decided to call it a day after a rather pathetic five miles — albeit with many ups and downs. As we came up from the river we saw a couple of buzzards riding the strong winds over the top, their presence alarming a flock of birds hidden the woods who flew off trilling alarm calls, not that the buzzards seemed at all interested in chasing them. On reaching Cornworthy church, we got a taxi back to Totnes, stopped for a cream tea — a reward for skipping lunch — and drove back to town through the crawling traffic.
