London to Dartmoor

It has been a long and tiring journey to Dartmoor but we finally arrived. This morning after landing at Heathrow and getting our rental rental vans we divided up into two groups to start our drive to Dartmoor. In Mark P.'s van there was . . . Mark P., Sue, Cherie, Mel, Lisa, Anna May, Amy, and Jason. In Thomas' van there was . . . Thomas, Mark M., Dave, Deanne, Toni, Andy, Vicki. With the vans loaded with luggage and some discussion about the route and a few other things we were off. Mark P. has a GPS that he used to get us where we needed to go so Thomas was following him. About an hour into the drive we had to stop to fill Thomas' van with gas which gave us a little break from the stress of driving on the left side of the road. (FYI - Why in Britian do we drive on the Left?) Once that was done we continued on our way to our first stop - Stonehenge. At Stonehenge we first got our tickets and map and then decided to have a little lunch. After eating we took the shuttle to the monument and then walked around listening to the audio tour.What an impressive site. This was one of the 'wish list' items I had for this trip and I was so glad we got to make a stop here. I think we spent about 45 minutes walking around, viewing the stones and listening to the fascinating history. We then returned on the shuttle to the Visitor Center and had a chance to look in the gift shop or visit the museum. Around 2:00pm we got back in the vans to make the last part of the drive to Ivybridge and Blackadon Cottage.

The drive took us a little over two hours and was horrendous. There was quite a bit of traffic and most of the time it was a two lane road. On top of all that we were all tired. Thomas and I had only gotten a few hours of sleep between our two overnight flights for this trip. The day we began the trip we were up around 6:00am (this was Wednesday) and it was now Friday afternoon (roughly 4:00pm) in Ivybridge. That means that Thomas and I had been up for about 51 hours. Thomas was having a very hard time staying awake and I just kept talking to him and rubbing his neck and back to keep him awake. By the time we arrived at the cottages we were exhausted. We first went in and met the owners and then picked our rooms. Then we had coffee and tea with cookies and just relaxed for a little while. Next we unloaded the vans and got settled in our rooms. The owner of Blackadon had planted some boxes for us on a walk on the moor just in back of the cottages. So a group of 10 of us headed out to get these. Thomas decided to stay in and take a nap but I headed out with the group. We had a little trouble with the clues and some of the clues were a little off and we managed to find two boxes. We tried for a third one but we had trouble finding the area and it started to rain. Back at the cottages we took showers and got ready for dinner. Around 7:00pm we had dinner - beef stew with carrots, cabbage, carrots & mashed potatoes. Also had an egg & mayo lettuce salad and for dessert we had lemon tart. Not long after dinner we headed to our room to get some very much needed sleep. We are both so tired and very cranky - hopefully tomorrow we will be refreshed and ready for Dartmoor.