Hound Tor (or not?)

The day Eleanor left, Paula and I took the kids on a supposedly short-ish hike across to Hound Tor and a medieval settlement. Well. We looked on the map for the footpaths, understood roughly the way to go, and set off.

A word of explanation for American readers: in England, and in fact in most of Europe, private property is (in our view) only "sort of" private. That is, you can "own" land, but there can easily be public footpaths that crisscross your property, and anyone has a right to walk along those paths. Don't like it? Tough. In Italy, you are even allowed to hunt on property that is not yours. But I digress.

I knew from the map that we were to turn left at some point. Sadly, the path kept winding to the right. And going down. And down. And down. Hmm.

We did eventually find a left-hand turn. And then we plowed through a bog reminiscent of the Okeefenokee Swamp (minus the alligators) with no markers. Through a gate, and then? Voila! An obvious footpath again! With markers, no less!

Heartened, we went up. And up. And up. Eventually, we saw a Tor. Paula and I made the executive decision that it was Hound Tor. 

No luck on the medieval settlement, but the kids had a marvelous time on the Tor; James even found some bioluminescence!

Time for group photo, and... a rainbow!

Getting home was a whole different source of anxiety. We learned that we WERE at Hound Tor, but had come in on an alternative path. So we left on the originally intended path, only to circle and circle and circle (getting a bit anxious) and go down on a 6-inch-wide path through bracken above our heads...eventually (phew!) making it to the Okeefenokee. We arrived back at the farm to a delicious meal of Indian takeout sponsored by my parents! Delish!

Love,

Alexandra