Designated areas of Dartmoor are the only places in England where you can camp out in the wild if you respect the environment. But for how long?
What was that?! I was asleep, now I’m suddenly wide awake. It’s the middle of the night, I’m alone in the middle of Dartmoor, and there’s someone or something moving around outside my tent. Over the whistling of the wind, I’m sure I heard footsteps, and a sinister grinding noise. A murderer maybe? An escaped convict, filing through his leg irons, before coming to do me in. Dartmoor prison is just beyond that hill, after all. (OK, so it’s mainly for non-violent criminals these days, but you try telling yourself that in the dark, on the moor. Fear does funny things to the imagination.) Or is it a beast, perhaps – the actual Hound of the Baskervilles?
Then I remember the pot-bellied horses I saw walking up here yesterday, and summon up the courage to unzip the door for a peek. Ha, not a Dartmoor pony, but a sheep. The grinding was the sound of mastication. Baaaa, now bugger off. It’s still not very inviting out there, driving drizzle, there’ll be no star-gazing tonight, so I zip back up and huddle down.
