Dartmoor

I had a nice time on Dartmoor with the silver Duke of Edinburgh group. We drove down straight after school on Friday, arriving at around 9pm. After pitching our tents in the dark the staff adjourned to the pub for a couple of pints of the local 'jail ale'. We were staying in Princetown which houses one of England's maximum security prisons. We returned to our tents at around midnight to find them totally covered in ice! It was a FREEZING night!!! Luckily my trusty Kathmandu 4-season down sleeping bag saw me through OK...
I was woken in the morning with a nice cup of tea delivered to my tent. The guys who run the DofE are very well trained! Saturday was a stunning day, unseasonably warm for the UK in March. Geordie & I went for a nice walk, we started behind the 3 kids groups, but managed to catch them up & overtake them. We came across a lovely thatched cottage, so I've included a photo for mum, who was quite taken with them when she was over here!
The timing was perfect on Saturday. We saw the kids into their campsite, then returned to our pub to watch the last couple of six nation rugby games. It was good to see Ireland take out the grand slam for the first time in 61 years.
Sunday was pretty chilled. The kids were mostly walking over open moorland, so we would wait where the footpaths intersected the road to check that they all came through OK & were on the right track. The waiting around gave Curto a chance to fly his kite!
We had a picnic lunch in the beer garden of the Warren House Inn, which claims to be the 3rd highest pub in England, & also claims to have had a fire continuously burning since 1845!!! It very conveniently looked out over the part of the moor the kids were walking on.

Sunday was also chilled, with more check-pointing, & a bit of walking. The kids were wild-camping at a disused farm, so we walked the 2km up to the campsite & back to check that it was OK. Once all the groups had arrived & had set up camp we returned to our campsite at the pub for a nice pub meal & another couple of pints.

Dartmoor is full of quaint narrow lanes, so it was rather 'interesting' as we travelled along in the school minibus to see an unmanned flock of sheep coming towards us, being followed by another vehicle. The sheep were literally penned in by the 2 vehicles, so decided to take the first gate they came across. You can imagine the surprise of the home owner who came out to see why her front garden was being invaded by sheep! I hope they eventually made it back to their rightful owner...
Dartmoor has some lovely scenery. The Clapper bridge at Postbridge, above, is thought to have been built around 1300AD. I also like the Dartmoor ponies which roam wild on the moors, plus the letterboxes that are set into stone walls.

The kids had another day of walking on Monday, & they all did really well to be at the rendezvous spot by the set time of 2pm, ready to travel the 4 hours or so back to school. We arrived home at around 6:30pm, tired, but happy after a few days of fresh air & sunshine.

I had yesterday & today at school, then tomorrow I have a teachers only day, before my 2 & a half week Easter break. Tomorrow night a large group of us from school are staying the night in Oxford & going out on the town to farewell Willem, who starts at his new school in London after Easter. Coincidentally, it is the school my brother taught at when he was living in London. On Saturday I fly to Hong Kong!!!