Beautiful dawn at Bournemouth It's 5.30am on a Saturday. The air is cold and crisp, bitingly sharp on the lungs. My fingers and toes are satisfyingly numb with the cold. Behind us, away to the east, the sky is starting to crimson below a thin line of grey clouds, and the warming air will soon … Continue reading Moonrakers and Sunseekers 2025
Family Walks
Tour of Brittany 2025 Day One: Roscoff to Brest
Distance 149.3km, 2117m ascent 'Monkey Tennis': an audio summary of the day's ride, recorded from Plouider later in the trip (3:42). Friday night and it was raining in Brest. It was only about 9 pm, but the heavy atmosphere made it seem later. The streets were deserted and anyone with an ounce of sense was … Continue reading Tour of Brittany 2025 Day One: Roscoff to Brest
Cloddfa Gwanas Quarries and Waun-oer
This weekend we had a bit of a mission to go to Snowdonia for some mountain walks. I’m planning to go for Summer Mountain Leader assessment in the next 12-18 months, and as part of that journey I need to log a total of 40 ‘quality mountain days’ during the consolidation period between training and … Continue reading Cloddfa Gwanas Quarries and Waun-oer
Mini tour of Brittany day 3 – Huelgoat to Roscoff
After yesterdays magnificent feast, breakfast today was bound to be a disappointment. With no food at the B&B and most of the town square closed, I only had a café au lait and some freshly squeezed orange juice to get me going. It was more than enough. Despite my host’s assertion that ‘it’s all uphill … Continue reading Mini tour of Brittany day 3 – Huelgoat to Roscoff
White Tor
Looking north towards Hare Tor from White Tor The far west of the moor is an area I get to fairly infrequently. It's the longest drive from Torbay and, as I'm always striving to find a balance between early starts for long days on the moor and a solid lie in and brunch, we usually … Continue reading White Tor
Grey Wethers and Sittaford Tor
The last walk of 2021 was a short walk with two friends and their dogs up to Bellever Tor to see the views, a impeccable plan if it weren't for the fact that it was so foggy on the day that we couldn't even see the bottom of the tor from the top. Still, we … Continue reading Grey Wethers and Sittaford Tor
Saddle Tor
Saddle Tor, with Hay Tor peeping over its shoulder. Dwarfed by its more famous neighbour and appearing as a mere pimple from the nearby road, it’s a wonder anyone visits Saddle Tor at all. It rates poorly by comparison to its neighbours. It doesn’t look like much, from the main road to the south at … Continue reading Saddle Tor
Sourton Tors and Great Links Tor
Since leaving the hospitality industry, I've found Bank Holidays to be a real luxury. They used to be a source of dread, stress and overwork, but now they are a fabulous opportunity to spread two days of busyness over three days. This weekend, we managed to allocate a day look at new cars, one to … Continue reading Sourton Tors and Great Links Tor
Scorhill and Kestor Rocks
I can't overstate just how much we have missed Dartmoor during the last lockdown. For most of 2020, we were still allowed to go to Dartmoor for our exercise and just being able to do that had such a positive effect on our collective mental state. It allowed us to break out of home and … Continue reading Scorhill and Kestor Rocks
Swincombe
It’s hard to believe it’s been over three months since our last family walk on Dartmoor. We’ve found the last lockdown to be tough. Days out on the moor have been at least a fortnightly event for the last year or so, but the January closure put an end to that as we live just … Continue reading Swincombe
Blaggers' Blog 