Widecombe-in-the-Moor and Bonehill Rocks

I was awake around 6:30am but stayed in bed until 7:00am. After showering and dressing I straightened up the room and then went into breakfast. Had the usual - scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, beans and toast. I also had two cups of coffee so that I was good and awake for the day. Once I had eaten I went down and made our lunches for the day. Finally at around 9:30am everyone was ready and we were on our way. Today we headed for Widecombe-in-the-Moor. The drive seemed to take forever but we finally arrived at the town and we parked. We were given a certain amount of time to explore the town and then meet back at the vans. Thomas and I stopped first thing and had ice cream cones with clotted cream. We ate these while walking around and window shopping. After the ice cream was gone we went in to see the church and then walked around the small cemetery. We also bought a few postcards and some pixie pins (these are suppose to protect you on the moor). The town is small and we were done so we found a bench under a tree and had our lunch then waited for everyone else so we could head out and scavenge some letterboxes. Thankfully everyone was on time and we piled into the vans and headed for Bonehill Rocks.

It only took us about 10 minutes to arrive at Bonehill Rocks and we were all ready to look for boxes. We were only on the moor for a few minutes when someone blew their whistle - a box had been found. We all headed there to stamp in and then there was another whistle, and another. It was amazing and fun. We were finding boxes like crazy. Then towards the end we were finding boxes but the stamps were gone. When 4:00pm rolled around we all headed back to the vans to make our way back to the cottages for dinner. We figured we had found about 18 boxes today and we had loads of fun.

Back at the cottages Thomas and I took showers and changed before dinner. Once dressed we went out to dinner. Tonight Mark from Blackadon cooked us salmon, broccoli, potatoes, carrots and peas. For dessert there was apple & cinnamon cake. When dinner was done we all piled back into the vans to drive to Bovey Tracey to meet some local letterboxers. We met at the Dolphin Hotel and had drinks and just visited. At first it was a little slow but then stamps began making the rounds and then everyone started mingling and talking. The local boxers had great stories of the moor and letterboxing and they all had interesting ways that they stored their stamp images. One of the one I liked was a man who scrapbooked his. It was a typical scrapbook but it was nice. He would put the names of boxes and some information on the sheets and if it was a series he would put the whole series one after another. Then when he found the boxes he would stamp on a card then cut it out and put it with the name and info in the scrapbook. I also liked the way some of them stamped while out letterboxing. They had a box that held cards (4x6 index cards) on the top and the bottom part was closed with a slit. After they stamped the card they would put it in the box to hold until they got home. We all had a good time and it was a great way to end the day. We also got our Catalogue of Dartmoor Letterboxes. The drive back to the cottages seemed long - I think we were all tired. But we did manage to visit a little when we got back to the cottages. But as they say - 'all good things must come to an end' and it is now time for bed. We have a long drive tomorrow to visit a castle.