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.