By: Blonde Two
By Blonde Two
Mr Blonde Two and I went out on a windy Dartmoor Bimble on Sunday. We were checking out bivvy locations for a December bike ride that he is planning with friends. We found a few lovely spots with all of the usual camping things: grass, mud, sheep poo etc; and then we found somewhere a bit more unusual; it was a Dartmoor campers’ waterbed.
I don’t know if you have ever slept on a waterbed; I have, it was a warm and comfy experience. The Dartmoor equivalent would, I suspect, not be quite as relaxing. Like a giant boil, but without the heat; this wavering piece of earth would have had me worrying all night about imminent collapse.
You find these soggy pimples all over Dartmoor, the Ten Tors kids love playing with them. It is particularly entertaining to make a hole in one, jump on it and watch the water spurting out.
We have a video for you below (this is a Blonde first, so please be patient if it doesn’t work first time).
These bogs form part of a delicate ecosystem. Advocating making a hole and watching the water squirt out is remarkably irresponsible. I expected better.
Hello Steve. I hadn’t considered that; thank you, we will bear it in mind in the future.
I sort of doubt that you could ever stop people from playing with floating bog – but I doubt if enough do it to cause real damage. There are 8 million cats in Britain, and at least three birds are taken for each cat each year (not all cats take birds, but those that do usually do it regularly). The bird organisations say that it doesn’t make an appreciable difference to bird populations.