What a wonderful evening for a night walk. The first real cold, clear night of the year, the last WW for a while unfortunately. We set off along the lovely old footpath from Merrivale to Daveytown through Longash farm and over the stream, tonight in full dramatic flow rushing down to meet the River Walkham.
A short diversion from the path to explore an old ruined farm with a full set of stadle stones minus their tops. Then a little further on a lovely little mossy Tor.
Bright lights were approaching? Other walkers? Dartmoor Rescue? No Bikers slithering and sliding along the muddy track.
On up to find Hucken Tor, a bit of a circuitous route through the old field walls but eventually over the stile and there it was, quite an impressive pile of rocks approached from below and lovely views from the top in the moonlight. Once on the King Tor track those bikers again and a familiar voice “hello Mike”! It was the Thursday biker boys and girls out for a blast before lockdown. We followed their lights down over the stream again and up and along the stone rows back to the cars. We tend to take the Merrivale remains for granted having walked past them so often but they are an amazing group of Bronze Age reminders of the past. The large Cist is thought to have been built for an important warrior chief. Shame that in 1870 a farmer cut out the middle of the huge topping stone for a gate post!
Stella
PS: While doing a Recce for this walk I came upon some large blue containers among the dense gorse full of soil and it one a strange plant flourished. What could it be? Raz suggested cake!
Stella