To misquote Mick Jagger - “you can’t always get where you wanna”:- sometimes you just have to go where the paths take you.
A murky and rather damp start from Shilstone Tor. It really is not one of the spectacular Tors of Dartmoor - diminutive enough even before the stonemasons got their hands on it.
The original plan was to visit Scorehill circle and the tolmen stone but loads of gorse bushes got in the way combined with a few bad path choices. (None of which seemed to go in the right direction.) Maybe a compass would have helped. Anyway the murk started to lift and we reached the stone rows under Cosdon Beacon. A stop for coffee then on the long track to the stone circle beyond Little Hound Tor surprisingly dry compared to its usual state. Just past the large White Moot Stone we turned off on a one sheep track to the top of Kennon Hill. At last a huge motorway of a track taking us off in the right direction, this soon deteriorated back into another one sheep track but this time through about a kilometre of waist high bracken where it seems some people managed to pickup a few ticks! Just a matter now of finding a good track back to the cars, unfortunately even now the track disappeared at times into the previously mentioned swathe of gorse. Surprisingly we arrived at the cars dead on time.
On to the Northmoor Arms (now apparently open all day every day) where the inside had changed little except for the tall landlady who was pleased to cook our lunches and didn’t seem to mind if we moved an odd chair- that was a change! A shame the Thai Fishcakes had all gone.
Mike