By: Blonde Two
Dartmoor looking lovely and empty.
People visit Dartmoor to do all sorts of things; walking, cycling, running, bouldering, climbing, gorge walking, kayaking, canoeing, navigating, horse riding, wild camping, lama walking, pony feeding (bad), cheesy chip eating (a bit bad), re-introducing wolves (hopefully not for a long time) … In fact, when you think about it, it is amazing that Dartmoor isn’t so crowded with people that you can’t move.
Dartmoor sheep.
Thankfully it isn’t; with 365ish square miles to share around, you can walk off from the busiest car park, and within half an hour, be completely on your own (well, there are always the sheep!)
Blonde One and I are always interested to see what other people might be doing out on Dartmoor (some might call this nosiness!) The other day, we were taking a few review photographs; when we spotted a group of about six people standing in a circle and looking at something. This is an unusual Dartmoor activity; in fact there is some Blonde debate as to whether looking actually constitutes an activity at all. Whether it did or not, these people seemed happily engaged. There were two other main ‘activities’ involved in this group’s day: putting hands in pockets (a bit suspicious!) and wearing rucksacks (mostly small ones).
Listening to lichen and moss on Dartmoor.
We had a long and interesting (some might call it weird) Blonde debate about what the group could be doing; and came up with the idea that they were doing ‘listening’. There appeared to be a group leader (easy to spot – bigger rucksack), he was the guide and the group were obviously doing ‘guided listening’.
We had a happy journey home, pondering the possibility of making money out of Guided Blonde Listening Expeditions!
Well done for not going to ask and find out. The result would have been more than likely disappointing; the speculation was much more rewarding.
We did check on the map, but could see no obvious reason to ‘stop and stare’.
Listening is almost a forgotten art, though bird watchers do an awful lot of it – especially when the leaves are on the trees in summer. Out surveying, you could take a whole day to spot all the birds you can hear in half an hour! Sheep are lovely too – there is little to beat the music of sheep heard from a backpacking tent high up on a mountain at dusk. But you can keep the wolves and the lynx – re-introducing wild animals to a vastly changed and much more heavily populated England is unfair to both the animals and humans; and once re-introduced, they are protected species under European law and cannot be removed, either for their own sakes or for our safety.
Apologies. Somewhat passionate about this.
I agree with you about re-wilding, although I would like to learn more about the arguments involved. We Blondes have just returned from a lovely night listening to sheep, the wind and maybe an owl (or though it did sound a bit like a donkey) up on Dartmoor.