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Walking England - Six Feet First "Mendip Hills"
This was a transition day for us. Breakfast was in the comfortable complacency of the Cotswolds; lunch in the more austere Mendip Hills; and dinner in a market town on the edge of England's harshest area. Dartmoor. Our bus left The Hare and Hounds promptly at 8:30 for the 50 mile trip. We stopped at the Charterhouse Center for coffee and tea and a brief word about the mines in the area. The Charterhouse silver mines were one of the objectives of the invading Romans, but they mainly found lead. It was evident from the wall posters that this was a very environmentally conscious place. We made one other stop on our transition from the Cotswolds. There was avery steep, rocky area where a bishop once slept amid the high rocks while on a journey. The experience inspired him to write the familiar " Rock of Ages". We sang the first verse as we stood across the road from the marker commemorating the writing of the hymn. The Mendip Hills are a 30 mile long limestone plateau. We climbed to the 1,066 feet Beacon Batch vantage point, where the marker read:
This area was important during World War II. On the Cornwall walk in 2000. we saw a decoy site at Falmouth. This was one also. They were called " Starfish Sites". There are piles of stone called " tumps" each with a small light on it. They were arranged to simulates a railroad line. The ideas was to convince enemy bombers that this unoccupied land was a site worth bombing. Thy were set up so that explosives would go off and give the appearance of a steam engine having blown up. We dropped down the hillside and were bussed seven miles to The White Hart and Cross, a 17th century coaching inn on the old Bristol Bridgewater route, our lunch place. Nick, the proprietor, has been to the United States eleven times. In our state, he had been to Charlotte and Raleigh areas. His favorite place in the U.S. is the Phoenix-Tucson area of Arizona.
Following lunch we made a truly long, steep climb back to the lofty heights. On the 700 feet Wavering Downs the views were truly splendid but beyond verbal description. Margaret met us toward the end with a large container of black currant cordial. The group consumed most of it, and Jim Silkenat carried the rest down. Our descent ended at a new hotel where we were offered teas and scones. After half an hour there we again boarded the bus, this time for an 80 mile, hour and a half plus trip to Mortonehampstead. The long bus ride, after some steep ascents, produced a fair amount of napping. In Mortonehampstead we were housed at the White Hart Inn. There are lots of these all over England, but there is no connection between them to the best of my knowledge. Our dinner may have been the best yet on this trek. I had vegetable soup, cod, and stick toffee pudding, The latter was my favorite dessert, but not one easily found in this country. This one was especially tasty. We are now in Dartmoor, England's last great wilderness. It consists of woodland, rivers, wild moorland, granite outcrops, and treacherous boggy areas where it is essential to know where one is stepping. Its people are hardy and resigned to their lot. We were told that we would find them warmly welcoming, and we did. Distance walked: 6.06 miles. Next week: Dartmoor. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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