Letterboxing with Noddy

Woke up early this morning and we are still feeling tired. I think I slept well last night and was awake around 6:30am without using an alarm. So I got up and dressed and since it was still early I decided to straighten up the room a bit. Then I read some news headlines before heading out to breakfast. Same thing this morning - yogurt, scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, orange juice and coffee. Once Thomas and I had eaten we headed over to the other cottage to make our lunches. Now we were ready and it was still a little early - we had plans to leave at 9:00am. We put our backpacks in the van and then sat in the living room and waited for everyone else to get ready. Finally around 9:30am we were on the road
It took us about 50 minutes to get to where we needed to meet another British letterboxer. We arrived in Lydford and parked in a car park near The Dartmoor Inn. Here we met Noddy (Mark Fenlon) who was going to take us on a charity walk to find a series of 15 letterboxes called The Hound of the Baskervilles (48166 – 48181 Hound of the Baskevilles Charity Walk - An easy 4 mile walk in the lovely area of Doe Tor Brook and the lower slopes of Brat Tor. The walk does not enter the firing range, and is out until the October Meet. car parking is at High Down car park, which is at SX525 854. For a clue sheet please send an SAE and cheque for £2.50 made payable to Bude Explorer Scouts to Kevin O’Reilly, 46 St Marwenne Close, Marhamchurch, Bude, Cornwall, EX23 0HX ). So the group headed out on our walk starting somewhere around 10:30am. This series of 15 boxes were in the area of Doe Tor, Brat Tor and Widgery's Cross. [Charity walks as the name suggests are put out by people to raise money for charity, each sheets costs £2-3.] Noddy lead us along using his GPS and lead us to the area where we would hunt for the box. We ended up walking about 7 miles total by the time we went up, down and around the hills. We also climbed to the top of Brat Tor to see Widgery's Cross. During our walk to find the series of 15 boxes we also found three other boxes near some of the series. In total we ended up with 18 boxes. It was 4:30pm by the time we arrived back at the vans to return to the cottages. It was a beautiful day with lots of sunshine and blue skies. The views from the tors were incredible. We found a great spot up high to sit and have our lunch and take some time to enjoy the views. 

 When we arrived back at the cottages we didn't have much time but we managed to take some quick showers and get dressed for dinner. Tonight Mark P. arranged for us to meet with three prominent Dartmoor letterboxers . . . Roger & Stephanie Paul and Sylvia Moore. We visited for a short time and then it was time to eat. We had pork roast, roasted potatoes, turnips and parsnips for the main course. A salad for a starter and then cobbler, ice cream and custard for dessert. After eating Roger gave us a great slide presentation on the history of letterboxing on Dartmoor. We learned a lot about letterboxing and enjoyed the visited with these knowledgeable and friendly letterboxers. After the slide presentation they allowed us to get our Dartmoor 100 letterbox badge and our lifetime membership card in the Dartmoor Club. We haven't officially found 100 boxes yet but I don't think it will be a problem.

All in all it was a great day with incredible weather, beautiful location and meeting some great people. Not sure what tomorrow is about but I know we need to be ready by 10:00am.

Our First Day on the Moors

Last night I thought I would get lots of sleep since we were so tired and haven't slept much in over 50 hours but it didn't happen. Don't know what it was that kept me from just crashing but I was awake from 1:30am to 3:00am. So this morning I was groggy and not in the best mood. We had to be up around 7:00am so that we could get dressed, have breakfast, make our lunch for the day and be ready to leave at 9:00am. For breakfast I had yogurt, toast, scrambled eggs, sausage and bacon - and plenty of coffee. After eating Thomas and I made our way to the area where things were set out to make our lunches. We got our sandwich made, picked some chips and cookies and fruit and got them all in a bag and now we were ready to go.

Another thing that happened was that I found out we weren't going to go to Cranmere Pool. This was one of the main reasons why I wanted to come on this trip. I guess since you can no longer use the military road it is just too long of a hike and Mark P. felt that most of the group couldn't make the trip. This news didn't set well with me and put a damper on things. Anyway time to head out. Once we were all in the vans we headed out. A couple from Bristol are here with us for the weekend to take us out letterboxing and show us around - Andy and Jane Wilkes (Andy is the letterboxer and Jane just tags along sometimes - Andy's trail name is The Happy Wanderer.) The original plan for today was to go on a coastal walk with the owner of Blackadon (his name is Mark also - that makes three Marks at the cottages and it is very confusing) but he had something come up and couldn't make it today so the plans changed and Andy was taking us out. We didn't end up leaving until 10:00am and we first headed to Sharpitor to do a little scavenging. We didn't find any letterboxes although I found a geocache - I was really disappointed that my first find was a geocache, I really dislike these. So we left the area and headed to Princetown. Here we visited the Dartmoor National Park Visitor Center. I got a pin and some postcards and we were able to get some stamps. In Dartmoor lots of businesses and places have stamps you can get just by asking. So we found a few here and stamped in beginning our list of finds in Dartmoor. We then walked around the town and got stamps at Prince of Wales Pub, Lord's Café and Gift Shop, Fox Tor Café, Old Police Station Café, and the Princetown Post Office and Store. After about an hour and a half we were back in the vans and headed out. Most of us ate our lunches in the van on the way to our next stop. We got to a car park so that could make a walk out to Duck's Pool to get that letterbox. This letterbox is the second box placed on Dartmoor and is one of only two that have a permanent structure to house it - the other being Cranmere Pool. Nineteen of us started the walk but not far in two people decided they didn't want to do it so they headed back to the vans while the rest of continued on. We made our way to Nun's Cross Farm and saw the farm and Nun's Cross (also known as Siward's Cross). Andy led us on our search for the letterbox by using a compass and a map since there are no actual trails on the moor. The walk was not easy as you are going through natural landscape - tall grasses, clumps of grasses and lots of wet, boggy areas. There were time where you would step and thought you were on solid ground but your foot would end up being swallowed by a hole. It was almost like a vacuum where your foot would be sucked down and it felt like you would lost your shoe. Since we were a large group and we are all of various levels of fitness the walk took some time. When we got in the near vicinity of the box we all started looking for a large rock with a plaque on it. After trudging through the marshy landscape and going up and down some small hills we finally found the spot (actually Bell Motel found it after wading through ankle deep water). The box is hidden under a small rock where it is housed behind a door in a steel box. Behind that is a large rock with a plaque for William Crossing. So we all sat around and stamped in - it was a great feeling. Now it was time to head back to the vans. We took a slightly different route that wasn't quite as wet and eventually made it back. All in all it took us around three and a half hours to make the trip and at the end we were all exhausted.

The drive back to Blackadon was a quiet one since we were all spent. We arrived at the cottages between 7:30pm and 8:00pm and dinner was suppose to be at 7:00pm. So we just put our things in our rooms and got our wet shoes and socks off and then sat down to eat. Tonight we had fish (seafood) pie, cauliflower, carrots & green beans. Also a vegetable soup with a bacon flavored stock and for dessert a chocolate and rum ganache. Afterwards we did some exchanging and stamping before finally calling it a night around 10:30am. I am now showered and trying to get some blogging done but am very tired. So if this doesn't quite make sense that is why. Time for bed now so that we can be rested for whatever tomorrow brings.

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.

Airports and Airplanes

With everything done it was time to head out for the trip. Thomas and I left Santa Fe around 6:30pm to head down to Albuquerque to begin our journey to England. Our flight wasn't until 11:57pm but we decided to stop and get some dinner before making our way to the Sunport. For dinner we stopped at Pappadeaux's. I really like this restaurant and we haven't been there in a long time and I was glad we stopped here. The food was as good as I remember and it was nice having a great dinner before our flight to New York. After eating we headed to the parking at the airport and then took the shuttle. We were early and the desk for jetBlue wasn't open yet so we just sat and read for a while. When the employees arrived we checked our bags in and then went through security. Everything was quiet this late and things went quickly. Once at the gate we read until it was time to board the plane. This was an overnight flight to JFK and Thomas and I tried to sleep. It turned out that neither of us slept very well. It is hard to sleep on a plane when you are seated upright and there is really no place to put your head. The flight was uneventful and we landed in New York around 5:30am. We picked up our bags and then found out where our connecting flight was taking off. We had to make our way from Terminal 5 to Terminal 4 which turned out to be a few minutes walk. At Terminal 4 we found the bag storage area so that we could leave our luggage somewhere so we didn't have to haul it around all day. We got that all settled and then went to find something to eat. There weren't many options and we ended up at Central Diner. We took our time eating since we had all day and had coffee and talked about the trip. After eating we went and found where the Virgin Atlantic check-in was located then we needed to find a place to sit and wait. It was too early to check in and finding chairs to sit in and wait proved to be challenging. Finally we found some at the AirTrain area. Here we read and watch a show on our iPad. Unfortunately that did really take up all that much time so we decided to get on the AirTrain and ride around the airport a few times. Once back at Terminal 4 we just sat and waited for Bell Motel to call us.

Around 11:00am we got a call from Bell Motel and she had arrived in Terminal 5. We told her where we were and she made her way to Terminal 4. After she got her bags checked in we all grabbed a taxi and went to Forest Park to find some boxes. We needed to occupy our time until later in the day. The taxi dropped us off right at the beginning spot for Many Attractions of Forest Park. This is a 25 box series on about a mile hike. We spent a little over two hours looking for these boxes and ended up finding 23 of the 25. When we were done we found a place to call for a taxi to get back to the airport. Here we went to the baggage storage and got our luggage and the made our way upstairs to get checked in. It didn't take long since we had checked in online and had our boarding passes already. All we had to do was get the bags checked. Then we went through security which seemed a little disorganized and took about 25 minutes. Once through security we made our way to Gate A3 to meet up with the group for the flight to London. Everyone was there so we said our hellos and then just visited until it was time for boarding.

They started the boarding at around 5:30pm and things went smoothly. The Captain made an announcement about how we had to wait until 6:30pm for takeoff because we couldn't land in London too early. Then he made another announcement about backup at JFK and we were waiting to be able to leave. In the end we left about an hour late. The flight was long and Thomas and I tried to sleep but it wasn't that great and we only got a little shut eye. During the flight we had some dinner, watched a couple of movies and read. Finally at 6:40am we arrived in London. Then we went through Customs and gathered our bags. Once everyone had their things we made our way to the Arrival Hall to meet with the car rental people to get the vans so that we could begin our trip. We are now in England and the journey begins.

Preparations Are Done and It Is Time To Go

Tonight we are headed to the Sunport to begin our journey to Dartmoor. After preparing for almost a year it is finally time to go. I can't describe how excited I am about this trip. It is something I have been thinking about since I began letterboxing 8 years ago. Up to now I have been posting once a month to document the preparations for this trip. Now that the trip is here I am going to post daily on what we do and where we go. The first part of the trip will be in Dartmoor and then Thomas and I are staying in Brighton and London for a few more days after Dartmoor and I am going to try and write something each day.

During the last year I tried to getting things done so that I wasn't having a large 'To Do' list right before we left. So I have to say that August was a pretty easy month for planning, organizing and packing. I did make a logbook/journal for this trip - which I am very happy with - it came out great. Also during the month we added things we needed to take on the trip that we didn't need now to our packing area. So that made it easy to actually see what we had and keep track of things as well as getting things packed.

Other last minute things I did was to go to AAA and get some British Pounds so that when we get to England we are ready and don't have to worry about changing money. I also called Verizon and added a UK calling plan for the two weeks we will be there. And I printed out a few letterbox clues for our time in London - I didn't get many because there are a lot of things we want to do so we probably won't have a lot of time to letterbox at the end of the trip.

We are ready for this trip and are excited about the visit to Dartmoor. The next time I post we will be in England and hopefully relaxing and having fun. All the plans and packing fell easily into place and it is making me a little uneasy - I hope I haven't forgotten anything - oh well, it's too late now. We will just have to do without or go shopping if we need anything. Here is to another adventure.