Alex Roddie joins local mountain leader Emily Woodhouse for the moors, tors, woodland and gorges of the Dartmoor Way. On the way, they share differing perspectives about camping, nature and what it means to feel at home
ALEX: I think lockdown was the final straw. After 13 years living in Lincolnshire, my wife and I decided to move back to Scotland. We searched for many months before finding a place in Angus, and in March 2023 we made the move. It coincided with work that required long spells away, and my feet barely touched the ground before I was off again. As I boarded yet another train, it’s probably unsurprising that I ruminated on life’s big questions. Where exactly is home? Where do I belong?
This time, however, the train was speeding me somewhere new. My friend Emily lives on Dartmoor and had invited me to visit. It was strange heading south again after leaving what seemed like moments ago, but I reasoned I could write about hiking the Dartmoor Way for a book project, and I would be in the company of the best guide – a local who knew the area intimately. What was fascinating was just how different our experiences of that walk would be…
ORBITAL (3 April)
ALEX: We began the trail anticlockwise from Tavistock. My preconceptions of Dartmoor had been shaped by The Hound of the Baskervilles, and more recently by the camping controversy. It’s the only place in England where wild camping is explicitly allowed – within certain parameters – but now the long-standing right to camp free on the moor is threatened.
Usually when backpacking in England, I’ll ‘stealth camp’ and leave no trace, aware that what I’m doing isn’t legal, strictly speaking. This time I’m visiting somewhere here in England that lets backpackers be themselves – but it’s a fragile tolerance. I’m curious to learn what that feels like.
The Dartmoor Way goes around Dartmoor, not over it: an orbit of bridleways, green lanes, ancient footpaths and tarmac roads linking towns and villages with some of the moor’s edgelands. “It won’t be a wild mountain experience,” Emily had warned me, more an exploration of margins and boundaries.
Today’s walk has started to lift my sense of feeling unmoored. The trees have yet to show leaves, and the woodlands clustering gorge after gorge still have that bristly, bleached look, all twigs and faded bracken straw. Only the surprising brushstrokes of yellow gorse (or ‘furze
