Easter can often be changeable and this year was no exception. We were glad that we had booked into a bunkhouse with a nice warm stove. The eleven of us had the whole bunkhouse to ourselves and got on really well with the farmer who owned it. He took the kids on rides on his JCB and let them play with the horses.
We successfully crammed in lots of different activities into the few days we had there. There was a crag just a few minutes’ walk from the bunkhouse which was great for scrambling and a few lower grade climbs it was quite a find as it was not mentioned in the definitive guide book for the area. It was pretty quiet there were no other climbers and it was suitable for the kids to play around on as well. We even did a bit of abseiling there.
We went on quite a long walk, for little legs, to Lucky Tor which was in the guide book. It’s in a really idyllic setting in front of the crag is a sheep maintained lawn with a stream running through it and trees for shade. As it had been a hot walk the first things the kids did was dive in the stream. The climbing there was great but we did leave it rather late for our return and ended up hitchhiking for some of the way. When the weather was grim we went walking and indulged in the sport of letterboxing. This is a weird Devonian ritual where old ammunition boxes containing a rubber stamp and hidden somewhere on or near a tor. When you find one the idea is to stamp a note book you carry for the purpose and put a stamp and or comment in the book provided. Strange but it is quite satisfying to find one.
The holiday was all too soon over but it is an area many of us would like to visit again.