So we had a restful weekend staying at home and today packed the car and drove down to Okehampton on the edges of Dartmoor.
We parked near the Okehampton Youth Hostel by the railway station and got our boots on and got our rucksacks on and started walking along the road for a short while before passing through a gate onto a short path through some woods.
This brought us to a concrete footbridge spanning the A30 dual carriageway. It was a very warm afternoon and soon we were sweating as we followed a route across a sloping open area to reach a narrow tarmacced road leading to the Okehampton army camp.
We passed the camp and a small shed which was the firing range centre – we had checked on the dates when the Okehampton firing range would be out of bounds and it was luckily clear for the remainder for the month and August as well.
Crossing a cattle grid and signs warning road users were only allowed further with permission we followed the still tarmacced road as it rose upwards along the moor and passed a group of soldiers performing some sort of exercise on the moorland nearby.
The tarmac eventually ran out and continued as a rough land rover track as it veered around the side of West Mill Tor to gain the top of Yes Tor at 619m.
After a quick look at the views, we followed a more level path across to the neighbouring summit of High Willhays which is slightly higher at 621m and is the highest point until you reach the Brecon Beacons further north in South Wales.
We sat on a boulder to cool down a bit and have a short snack before dropping down the south-east side of High Willhays and crossed the tussocky ground towards Dinger Tor where we could see others nearby.
We veered off from near Dinger Tor down towards a brook flowing into the West Okement River and started to keep an eye out for a place to stop for the night.
We found a small flat area next to the brook but the water seemed to have a lot of slimy growth so we kept on going down towards the river where me soon found a small flattish are not far from the water.
The sun would be out for a while longer as I started collecting water and filtering it through the “Travel Tap” purifier. I fired up the Primus Eta stove and 1 litre pot and then we placed two “Wayfarer” Sausage Casserole ready meal pouches into the 1 litre Trangia pot we which we had also brought along as it was shallower and wider than the Primus Eta pot.
As we waited for the water to boil the breeze died down and the midges attacked! I got my Mountain Equipment Ultrafeece jacket on and put a Buff over may face and quickly pitched the Robens Mythos Duo flysheet which we had brought along to sleep in. Of course the damn midges had collected under the flysheet as I pitched it so it didn't help to keep them off at all.
Once the food was ready, I ate mine while walking around to avoid the midges. Soon we realised that we would be better off moving elsewhere to avoid our tormentors and so Karen walked up the slope towards nearby Lints Tor to see how things were a little higher up. She was soon back to report that there was still a bit of a breeze up there and no midges. So we quickly packed everything away and headed to higher areas. We eventually arrived at a more than large enough flat grassy area among the lumpy grass tussocks prevalent around the area and near an old iron sign which appeared to be some sort of survey marker in the area marked on the map as Kneeset Nose.
Soon I re-pitched the flysheet and we had our sleeping mats (I had a an old Karrimat and a 3/4 length very old Thermarest Ultralite) and sleeping bags placed in Goretex bivvy bags and at around 21:40 were ready for the night's sleeping after a quick hot chocolate.
Karen was up early in the morning for a loo break and saw that it was very misty but there was a bright moon above.
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