Hello, and welcome back to another edition of the BUMC Dartmoor Wild Camp trip report.
The trip started as well as expected on Saturday morning, with the MPV only leaving Bath a little bit late! On top of an emergency trip to Go Outdoors, this gave everyone in Megan’s car plenty of time to stop for breakfast en-route. The rest of the journey went with little incident, apart from Ben and Harry seemingly being unable to play a song all the through without accidentally skipping it.
After arriving at the layby expertly selected by Peter and all of the rucksack adjusting being done, the trip could get properly underway with a nice long uphill slog to Hameldown Tor. Our intrepid group of hikers promptly decided the best thing to do was to sit across the middle of the path and eat lunch. It was only after this, arriving at Grimspound, that we discovered that Adam L is apparently a font of historical Dartmoor-based knowledge. A short break was enjoyed, during which he described in intricate detail the lives of some sheep farmers from 4000 years ago.
The walking continued, eventually crossing the main road without the rumoured pub stop. Up another hill we came across a well-preserved stone row. Cue Adam L explaining the purpose of the stone row, and Megan walking Anna down the aisle to marry Katie (I think we were all getting concerningly silly by this point).
We rambled on, with Tom finding a frog (see attached image), who seemed strangely unconcerned with suddenly being surrounding by a group of strange human-looking creatures. This was followed by a compulsory stop to try and pick up a large fallen tree as we entered Fernworthy forest. We quickly made it to the reservoir before continuing. It was at this point that our navigation became ‘interesting as we ended up walking through a mix of forest and bog. The upside is that we only needed to climb one fence!
It was emerging from the bog and summiting Thornworthy Tor that we realised our mistake – visiting on Dartmoor during the last training weekend before the Ten Tors event. The North Moor was crawling with teams of slightly unhappy looking teenagers, all seemingly vying for our intended camping spot at Middle Tor. We instead continued walking to a lovely, less occupied, place on the North Teign river. The threat of rain forced some rapid pegging as we erected our tents. Only Ben and Peter struggled to get theirs in, requiring assistance from some willing volunteers.
Luckily the clouds passed without rainfall, and we could set about cooking dinner. This was going well until Katie announced that she didn’t have a lighter for her stove. A note for lighter-less people in the future – take care when igniting one gas stove from another, especially when I’m sitting downwind.
After dinner most of us took a nighttime stroll towards Scorhill Tor, stopping at the Tolmen Stone. Adam L broke out some more Dartmoor knowledge, claiming that legend says anyone passing through a hole in the stone would be cured of whooping cough, rheumatism, and being an unfaithful woman. I have only been able to find sources which say passing through the stone is believed to cure rheumatism in adults and whooping cough in children (Dell, n.d.). You’ll have to ask Adam himself where the rest of it comes from! Enlivened by our new-found lack of rheumatism we continued, visiting the Scorhill stone circle before returning to camp.
A few members of the group were apparently up for the sunrise, but we’ll have to take their words for it - I wasn’t so keen at 6am. When the rest of us did get out of our tents we found a beautiful morning with warm weather and clear skies. Breakfast was soon underway and the tents taken down and packed away shortly after. At this point we discovered that most people, understandably pessimistic about the Dartmoor weather, had failed to pack suncream. I unfortunately did not have enough to share around.
Heading back towards Fernworthy Forest, we made our way through some typical Dartmoor tussocky grass. The walk southwards through the woods proved uneventful with even Adam L losing some interest in weaving historical tales, informing us at one point that a distant stone circle was indeed a stone circle. As we approached the end of the woods however, Katie made the first of many tick discoveries of the trip (she removed 7 in the end!). It was here that Anna also revealed that her rucksack was mainly full of easy peel oranges.
Jumping the second fence of the trip, we quickly made it out of the woods and on to the Warren House Inn just in time for lunch. Pints (mainly non-alcoholic options) were enjoyed, as well as some ice cream and cheesy chips before the map was handed over to Anna and Ollie to lead the rest of the navigation. This went well, despite her looking at the completely wrong map area in the photo below!
A hot walk through the woods and along some farm lanes, with some tractors to provide the necessary levels of excitement, brought us back to Hamel Down and the cars.
Megan’s car and the MPV both had fun getting off the moors, with some questionable navigation from Google Maps, but we were quickly back on the M5 heading towards Bath. The MPV was treated to some Wurzels classics before we switched drivers and Ben started playing grown-up and sensible music.
All-in-all a successful trip. I hope everyone had a great time and is now enjoying their extreme sunburn.
Until next time
Adam Parsons
Bibliography
Dell, S., n.d. Scorhill and Teignhead walk [Online]. Available from: https://visitdartmoor.co.uk/get-active/the-best-dartmoor-walks/scorhill-and-teignhead-walk/ [Accessed 28 April 2025].