Dartmoor, England

The craggy landscapes and surreal rock formations of Dartmoor are in the county of Devon in southern England. In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s famous novel, The Hound of the Baskervilles, a message sent to Sir Henry Baskerville read, ‘as you value your life or your reason, keep away from the moors’. Doyle painted an image of the moor as grim, forbidding and dangerous. As the famous mists descend upon the peat bogs on your walking tour of Dartmoor, you may feel your senses waking up. But there is no reason to fear this experience! The moors are a dreamy landscape of beautiful villages, country lanes, prehistoric stone circles, farms, rolling hills, granite tors (weathered rocks) and wild ponies. Allow yourself to be swept up in the romance of this evocative place.

Dartmoor is a rugged area covering an expanse of about 37 kilometres (20 miles) north to south with heather as the chief vegetation. The United Kingdom has 70 percent of the world’s heather moorland. From a royal forest in Saxon times, Dartmoor and the surrounding woodlands were designated a national park. Dartmoor National Park covers 945 square kilometres, including eight rivers that support the towns of Devon, and grazing fields for wild ponies, sheep, and alpacas.

Granite outcrops on a Dartmoor hillside above a patchwork of fields and woodland.

Its wild and picturesque scenery has attracted many visitors; tourism is a chief activity in Dartmoor, with locals dreaming up new and interesting walks on Dartmoor. Llama walking is one such out-of-the-box activity attracting tourists, growing from the alpaca farms which raise the llama for their wool. A regular guided walk can take you through a walking route that takes in the ancient stone circles and tors that rise up from the granite landscape of the moor, through the oak woodlands, and up to Haytor Rocks to experience a fantastic view of the South Devon coast and the ponies freely roaming the landscape at sunset.

Climbers on a granite tor on Dartmoor.

Granite rocks and moorland grasses on Dartmoor in evening light.

Articles about Great Britain published by Odyssey Traveller

The following list of articles published by Odyssey Traveller for mature travellers to maximise their knowledge and enjoyment of Britain when visiting;

• A Traveller’s Guide to Medieval Chester
• Roman Roads in Britain
• Understanding British Churches 
• Medieval British life
• Icons of British Villages 
• Studying Gargoyles and Grotesques
• New Discoveries About Britain’s Stone Circles
• Victorian Country Life 
• Britain’s Neolithic past 
• Lumps and Bumps, How to Read the British Landscape 
• The Lake District Poets 
• English Village History
• Britain’s National Trust 

For all the articles Odyssey Traveller has published for mature travellers, click through on this link.

External articles to assist you on your walk in Britain

• How to spend 48 hours in Dartmoor National Park
• Walking with llamas on Dartmoor
• Dartmoor National Park
• Visit Dartmoor
• Dartmoor
• National Trust: Britain’s Best Walks with Julia Bradbury
• National Parks of Britain.
• Ten books about Walking in Britain from the Guardian
• UNESCO World Heritage sites of Britain