We approached Dartmoor from the south east. There are a couple of bridges with a width restriction. 2.3m, but since we are 2.1m (without the mirrors) that's ok! It can't be harder than putting it in a container.

We are camped behind it for a couple of nights.

Its clad in tiles rather than brick.

Just a couple of km walk from the pub.

Its as bleak as it looks. Windswept and soggy.

Why are we here?

Still wondering why we are here. We turned round and headed back to the safety of Tardis, for tea.

The Victorian edifice is Dartmoor Prison.

The sun appeared briefly as we headed from Two Bridges towards Higher White Tor and Wistman's Wood.

If it was it would have been the meeting place of the Stannery Parliament, though that last met in 1753.

Crockern Tor is about the center of Dartmoor, the home of the ancient pagan god Old Crockern.

I think Stannus is the latin for Tin (element Sn in the periodic table). The Stannery Parliament met to consider the issues of Cornish Tin Mines. It was the tinners' governing body.

Dartmoor was considered a stannary area and was thus a self governing state within a state. The tinners had an untouchable sort of status. Tin mining here goes back to about 1198 AD.

The photo is of Littaford Tors, a couple of km to the north west.

We are following a ridge northwards. Nothing steep, just gentle slopes and easy walking.

We must remember for our future enjoyment that a wind which is strong in the valley floor is very strong on the ridge tops. At times Ali looked like she would be blown away!

Air temperature was below 10 degrees C. With a bit of wind chill to make it seem much colder.

Boggy underfoot - my new boots are wonderfully waterproof. Sadly, Ali's old boots, which used to be waterproof until this walk aren't any more.

There were fleeting patches of sunlight among the thick clouds.

The tors are granite (though of course everyone knew that by now!).

Looking back at Higher White Tor.

The darker patch in the distance on the left side is Wistman's Wood.

On the right is a leat. That more or less horizontal line running along the hillside is a man made water course. The sort of thing that miners have made in other parts of the world. We didn't find the end of it. Its the Devonport Leat, built around 1790 to provide water to the expanding dockyards at Devonport. It now feeds Burrator reservoir.

Further to the right, off the picture, on the ridge top, is the beginning of an army exercise area.

There were no red flags flying today. They probably knew better than to venture out.

A small wood in very rocky broken ground.

Mostly stunted oak trees. We believe coppiced, but we forgot to look!

And the sheep like the shelter (very sensible of them, we agree!)

The fuzzy white bits on the photo are rain drops on the lens.

Fortunately it was just a few drops then stopped - blown away by the wind?

The forest is centuries old, and very slow growing (we're surprised anything grows here!).

This is one for the geomorphology buffs, where, just in the patch the wood occupies, the granite has eroded into smallish boulders which surely protected the young trees, which in turn protect the mosses and lichens.

The spans are made of single stones.

This one has been disturbed by other hikers (there are other people as silly as us who ventured forth in the wind).

We are south east of North Hessary Tor (the one with the tv transmitter on), partway along the B3357.

This stone row is one side of an "avenue". A couple of hundred metres long.

Its the Grimstone and Sortridge Leat. Maybe 500 years old it supplies a few farms with water and used to run a couple of water wheels.

If you are wondering, leat is from the old english word watergelaet, meaning water channel. Now we are wiser!

But not a burial place as we have become used to. None of the ornamentation around the edges, but apart from that we were told about them at the national park info center in Princetown.

The stones are the base of a round building. Wood and straw formed the roof. A bit like a permanent gher that fell down. Though it would have had a steeper roof than a gher as the climate was probably less dry than Mongolia. 

We can't imagine why people would want to live up here. But then the climate was hopefully kinder a few millenia ago.

We don't know what it is, just that its different.

The two edges of the avenue.

We'll leave Dartmoor tomorrow for a hopefully more hospitable place.

Even the pub campsite was inhospitable, the showers were cold! We'd hate to think what its like in the prison if that's what the tourists get.