Helman Tor

Yesterday afternoon we went to Helman Tor. It’s a great big hill with lots of absolutely massive rocks on it.

Anyway, you can see from all the close together lines that it’s a steep hill and at the top we were twice as high above sea level as we were when we had to walk down to Lantic Bay.
I’m not sure if you can see this, maybe you can  make it bigger so you can read all about it.

This is us walking up to the top of the Tor.. and I spy with my little eye, something beginning with T!! No, don’t be silly, it’s not me, it’s T for Trig Point, one of our favourite things!

It was a really good view point and we could see for miles and miles and miles.

The huge rocks were really amazing. Ever so big and some were balanced on top of other ones, but I don’t think they would fall off.

We climbed up to the top and here I am sitting next to the Trig Point. Mum and dad decided that it was probably a bit dangerous for me to be plonked up on top of it just for a photo, phew.. that was a relief! So I just had to sit beside it.

I did stand on top of lots of other rocks though.

There’s an awful lot of sky up here.

Can you see me? Makes you realise just how mahoosive the rock is!

This is the trig point from the other side – yes, that’s me disappearing off to hide behind it and if you look really carefully you can just see a bit of dad. He was hiding behind it and I was supposed to be standing in front of it but every time he went behind it, I followed him. Serves them right for not taking any treats… I’m a diva dog and like my rewards.

We’d seen about all there was to see, and done a quick geocache, where we also captured a Munzee, so we started to make our way back to the carpark, where we had another Munzee to capture.

We took a different route home and on the way we went under this really big viaduct which turned out to be an aqueduct that carries water. I think we might be coming back here another day to do a bit more exploring as it all looks very interesting and there are lots of geocaches to be found,

Woofs until next time.

 

A trip down memory lane…

Well, actually it was more ‘a trip up memory hill’ but that didn’t sound quite right. Anyway, today the weather was really lovely so mum had the difficult choice of either doing lots of very dull accounts work or taking me for a really nice walk somewhere a bit different. A very tough decision but I gave her a nose tap and a pleading look…

We decided to go to Turners Puddle and walk up Black Hill because we’ve not been there for a proper walk since we moved house. We’ve been for short walks with Jack and Pip but when we meet up with them we usually spend most of our time playing in the water.

So, I had years of p-mail to catch up on and it was great to be walking up the old paths like we used to when we lived at our old house and came up here a lot.

We stopped to talk to some cows in the field where we once saw a couple of stags having a bit of an argument. I remember they were really noisy and a bit scary.

I found a very nice stick to take with me.

Until I found an even better one but I was a bit busy sniffing to worry about carrying a stick.

The paths along the heath hadn’t changed much at all – but there used to be an old car here, it’s mostly rusted away and you’d hardly know it had ever been there!

This is the old quarry where I remember doing my mad-bonkers-zoomies up and down the hills and paddling in the water.

And on the other side is the quarry that was sold back in 2011 – it’s had a lot of trees and gorse cleared off it but doesn’t look like much goes on there. HERE you can see what it used to be like.

This bit of our walk looked just the same as it used to.

But when we got over the top of the hill everything was different! There are hundreds and hundreds of young trees with lovely grassy areas in the middle with paths for dog walkers. It’s going to be absolutely lovely when the trees have all grown big.

Some bits are fenced off and there are big gates for dogs and people to walk through.

One day when the trees are all really big, you won’t be able to see all the village from here!

And this will be all be trees too!

There are still lots of big open spaces.

This is one of our favourite views.

Last time we were here this field had lots of cows in it but it was empty today.

We’re now back up at the top of the hill and on our way into the woods. This bit is usually quite muddy but it wasn’t too bad today.

More trees have been planted! And there’s a bench –  we do like a nice bench to sit on. You can just about see the wind turbine to the right of the christmas tree in the middle. There used to be some geocaches on the ‘Turbine Trudge’ but we haven’t done them because we didn’t really like the idea of walking near such a huge wind turbine, they’re a bit scary.

It was good to see that the old shepherd’s hut is still there. It’s looking even sadder than it did before and we’d like to pick it up and take it home with us but it’s way too big.

The forestry people had been chopping lots of trees down when we last came – you can see green piles on the right of this path and they’re overgrown piles of logs. They’ve probably left them there for the wildlife to live in.

The forestry people have been making open spaces in the trees and this pond looks new – the sign says ‘restoration work in progress’.

Look what we found – our old Munzee is still stuck on this post at Kite Hill! We haven’t been out looking for Munzees for ages and I think our account has been de-activated, maybe we should start doing it again.

One of our favourite geocaches to find is still here too – it’s a nice large one and a good spot to leave travel bugs.

We’re onto the home stretch here – just down the hill and turn left. It was along here that I chased after a deer when I was very young. I got myself lost and mum panicked a lot and whistled and shouted but I couldn’t hear her. I ended up making my way back to the car and a lady on a horse saw me and asked mum if she was looking for a small black spaniel. She ran down the hill, still shouting and whistling, and eventually I could hear her and ran to meet her. I never did that again!

When we got to the bottom of the hill we decided we weren’t ready to go home just yet so we took the little detour down by the Piddle.

And I had a little swim just like I always used to do!

There was no one at the ford today – I’d hoped I might see Jack and Pip but it wasn’t to be.

And they weren’t at the second ford either.. just a cow in the field, so we stopped to say hello.

So, that was the end of our walk – when we got back to the car the phone was down to only 1% – but at least it managed to record the whole walk and take loads of photographs. It’s really annoying if it runs out of battery before we’ve finished our walk.

This was one of the very first places that I went walking when I was a puppy so it really was a walk down memory lane… or up memory hill!

If you’d like to see a walk in 2008 when I was only 4 months old, just click HERE!