April 22: From London to Dartmoor: two champion drivers.

Today we rented our car in London, and drove to our bed and breakfast in Poundsgate on Dartmoor. This evening we climbed to the Haytor, and looked down on the Grimpound below.  Sounds so easy, doesn’t it? But this is a story of heroic driving . . . 

Our first day travelling together, I told Kathleen that disasters happen all the time while travelling – at least once per day.  She looked absolutely horrified, and perhaps a little scared, but the other half of what I said was that the wonderful things that happen more than make up for the “disasters”, which are usually not big deals at all, and are soon forgotten, while the wonderful things truly are wonderful, and stay with you and become part of you.  Otherwise, no one would travel.

Today was like that.  We checked out of our hotel, and Kathleen found out to her horror that they charged a pound a minute for phone calls.  Her first hotel charged £16 per day for Internet (which she didn’t get), but didn’t charge her for her calls to Alanna, so she thought calls from hotels in London were free.  None of her calls were more than a few minutes, but it was £10 she wasn’t expecting to pay, so she was upset, especially since she could have used the Skype phone for much less.  However, the hotel was nice, and we paid up.

While I wrote the blog last night, Kathleen had researched our “getting to” information for today, and knew exactly how we were getting to Heathrow, and programmed the Garmin.  She didn’t see a good reason to travel 22 stops by public bus, when we could take the Underground to Heathrow, and catch a local bus there, all using our Oyster card. 

Seemed fool proof, so off we went, each wearing a back pack and dragging a heavy suitcase.  For the first time since we got there, we had no issues with the Underground system, and made the two line changes like the seasoned travellers we believe ourselves to be. 

Arriving at Heathrow, I went to return Ian’s return ticket on the Heathrow Express, (he had meant to buy a single) which cost £18.  I was right at the counter, and I knew exactly where the ticket was – only it wasn’t.  We now felt as though we were out £18, so when we found out that the bus we thought was part of the public transit system actually was a private bus planning to charge us another £5 each, the worms turned.  We decided that we would get there on public transportation if it killed us, but it only hurt quite a lot.  We went back into the terminal, grabbed the netbook, logged onto “Plan Your Journey”, and figured out how.  After a free bus to the Heathrow Central Bus terminal, grimly recovering our suitcases that were determined to roll around the wildly careening bus, we checked the netbook again – but now we had no Internet, and the page hadn’t saved properly, so we had to go back inside for more information.  Kathleen asked the information person which bus to take, and she told us to take the hotel bus – for £5 each.  By now we had been travelling for almost two hours, and were already late to pick up the car.  Meanwhile, my bad experiences with information people on Sunday left me suspicious, so I got out my netbook again.  We both had the same information:  we had to take a bus to Nene station, cross the Bath Road, and take another bus to “The Plough”, a pub, and then walk the last quarter of a mile.  Dragging our suitcases, off we went, and arrived at the Holiday Inn M4 just after noon – and over two hours late.

Our next surprise came when I  was told that the insurance, which we had paid a lot of money for, was done by a third party, and in the event we damage the car, we would have to pay for it, and get the insurance company to reimburse us.  This was not what I was told when buying it, and I got it just so we wouldn’t find ourselves in that situation.  However, we got our little Kia Sportage, and even before I picked Kathleen up where she was guarding our luggage, I had to drive it through three gates, only slightly larger than the car.  I was so glad when that part was “over”.

Kathleen had programmed the Garmin perfectly, which was great, but unfortunately, the suction cup that holds the Garmin on to windshield is not with my stuff.  I guess Ian has it at home.  Our first challenge, besides remembering to drive on the left, was navigating the eight lane highways around Heathrow, with Kathleen holding the Garmin up to the windshield to catch satellites.  The first three hours of driving were on Motorways – increasingly small motorways.  It was a real highlight to drive by Stonehenge, and the views were truly spectacular, as the Canola is in bloom.

Our car had less than a quarter tank when we got it, so Kathleen figured out how to find services without losing our route, and we stopped.   We picked up sandwiches and bottled water, and drove to a layby to enjoy them in the beautiful sunshine.  This slowed us a little, but not as much as when we came to a roundabout and Kathleen had her hand cupped around the Garmin’s speaker.  We took a turn too soon, and ended up getting a scenic tour of some place called Peasmarsh, and found the ancestral manor of Sir Frances Drake, both of which were lovely.

We kept revising our plans, which were originally to go to Exeter and see the castle and the cathedral, and then to go and just see the cathedral, and then to spend the last 45 minutes of its day there,  and then to go to the B&B and return for evensong – the Garmin claimed we were only 30 minutes away -- and this was the plan when  we reprogrammed the Garmin.

I realize that many English roads are small, but as soon as we passed Exeter they got ridiculous.  I had already been driving for over four hours, and the roads went from double lane – but keep really far left; to one and a half lanes, so pull over;  to one lane, and back up if you see someone coming: to “there is no way this car will fit between those two stone walls.”  And stone walls there are here, covered in moss, with shrubs growing out of them – but old old stone walls, nonetheless.  When you meet a driver going the other way, and this happens frequently, one of you has to back up.

Poor Kathleen kept apologizing for everything as I got quieter and quieter:  for booking the place (my choice too!); for not realizing the roads would be like this (I knew); for gasping and cursing wheneve I did; and I think there were some apologies in there for not having been nicer as a little sister.

The road where we live.

Our B&B is on a little lane, and the family breed Clydesdale horses, so people come and ride “heavy horses” over the moor.  We now suspect that they ride on the moor because even the horses won’t fit on the roads. Our room has twin beds, no television, and the bathroom is down the hall, so although there is free WIFI, there isn’t a lot to keep us in our room.  I had flatly refused to go back to Exeter for evensong – we had missed it anyway, since the Garmin assumes we are driving at 40 clicks, and I think I averaged closer to 20. I didn’t have to worry about Kathleen jumping out, as with the walls on either side we were trapped in the car.  There was no way to open the doors!

Our landlady told us how to get to Grimspound, which is a 3500 year old stone village.  After we had a drink of water, we decided that we would be courageous, and venture out again.

Kathleen volunteered to drive.  I think she figured that on single lane roads she couldn’t forget which side she was on, and she drives a Kia at home, so thought it would be familiar.  I’ve always known that Kathleen is a great little driver, and she handled the tiny little lanes like she had been doing it all her life.  Of course, this car has no back up camera, and Kathleen finds this barbaric and uncivilized.

The Garmin wanted us to go back the way we came, but we couldn’t turn the car, and so we ended up going down to the Dart river.  We pulled over, and the place was magical.  I have rarely seen Kathleen so happy.  She was like Maria in the opening of the Sound of Music.  In fact, she just read me her description in an email to Bryan, and I have to include it here:

I found my true calling and woke up my Celtic spirit as we came across a place which felt like coming home.  We parked the car and walked across the sheep chewed grass through an oak forest with a stream carelessly running through it.  In that moment as I dipped my hands in the stream, all the cares of the world melted away and I found myself at peace.  That does not happen often enough for me.  I may drag Margaret back there with me tomorrow.  If we can navigate the narrow roads. 

The road we took up to the moor was called “Butts Cross”, and I figure that it got its name by how tightly one is wound while driving here.  Your butt cheeks actually do cross.

We carried on our way too soon, since we had only about an hour of daylight left, and the Garmin took us down the narrowest road in the world.  At one point, we ran into a Range Rover going the opposite way, and Kathleen just couldn’t back up.  She ended up maneuvering into a place where I could open my door about a quarter of the way and squeeze out to guide her, but when the other driver saw me guiding her backward, he reversed, and drove literally a mile back to this little farm yard.  The awful part of it was that when he went around the last corner, we didn’t see which direction he went, and we never saw him again.  Kathleen drove along front bumper chasing his front bumper, alternately swearing and apologizing. 

At one point I said, “I have never seen such terrible driving. . . “ and was about to say “conditions”, but we went over a bump and my voice cracked.  Poor Kathleen!  She looked like she’d been shot.  It was my turn to stutter and apologize.  We drove through a ford where the stream runs across the dirt road – did I mention that most of the roads aren’t paved?  And over a famous medieval bridge that was barely wide enough for the wagons it was built for, and we really had our doubts about the car fitting between the sides.

I wanted to turn back and find a better route home when we made it up to the moors and better roads, especially as we were losing the light, but Kathleen said, “I don’t believe I will ever come here to this spot again, and I am darn well going to see what I came to see.”  So we soldiered on.

Up on the moors we passed sheep, and horses, and rabbits ran across the road, and the gorse was in bloom, and the heather was delicately white, and the light was perfect, and suddenly nothing else mattered.  We passed a hillside that I had just seen on a documentary a few weeks before we left – I think it was on Coast.  We found a layby, and climbed the hill to the Haytor, a famous rock formation that I have seen in a dozen movies.  The path was small, and I could see how people get lost on the moors.  It was real Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre territory.

When we reached the top, we could look down into the Grimpound, and see the remains of the circular stone huts and the protective wall, still encircling the lost village.  It was absolutely magical.

Looking Across the Moor

Margaret, with Grimspound in the background.  Lots of cold wind!

Kathleen at Haytor.  The rooms at our B&B are named after "tors" or rock formations.  Ours is "Blackator", which we insist on pronouncing "Blackadder".

Kathleen was worried about driving after dark, so I told her I would – and then she got in the driver’s seat and turned on the motor.  The trip home was accomplished with the aid of the detour button, but Kathleen still had to cross the narrowest bridge in the world.  She drove with confidence and assurance, knowing at least that it could be done. 

We decided that there was no way we were going out to drive new roads (or are they goat trails?)  in the dark.  Instead, we pooled all of our food, and then noticed the bats flying around outside.  It was wonderful to see them zipping around in the last of the twilight, perhaps a dozen of them, gone almost before we realized they were there.  We must have spent a half hour with the lights off in our room, quietly watching the bats do what bats do, just as they have since the people were living in the Grimpound.

The weather is supposed to change tomorrow.  Let it change!  Whatever we do, and whatever disasters befall us tomorrow, we have both been reminded that the wonderful things will be the things that we take back home with us, in our hearts.  

I love this picture of Kathleen on top of the world!  It's her hero pose.