New year's eve is a quiet affair in the little village where my parents live. Everyone heads out of their house into the cold to stand around a fire brazier at midnight while the church bells nearby ring in the new year. Then everyone holds hands and sings Auld Lang Syne. Then we all head to the pub for a drink and a bacon sandwich. It's very cute and quaint.
New years day, we were up early to go for a walk - a good, healthy start to the new year. It was a nice morning too!
We started off driving to Dartmoor and parking at the start of the trail. We started by walking up a hill, and followed the path up to some rocks to get a good view of the surrounding landscape.
We kept following the path across some rather isolated moorland, until we came upon a river and a clapper bridge! This one was the Scorhill clapper bridge and it was really lovely!
From there, we came across a stone circle! I love all the random things that you find on Dartmoor! This stone circle was built in the Bronze age, so between 3000 and 1200 BC! The circle was 27m wide, and had 23 stones still standing, and 11 that had fallen over. It hasn't had any kind of restoration, so it was quite impressive, especially given where it was - in a fairly lonely part of Dartmoor.
The next part of the walk went down a small lane nearby, then through a forest - it was a great, varied walk! The forest was so pretty too - there's something really nice about European forests. It's different to Australian bush which is wild and messy - forests always seem to be clean and orderly!
We were on the home-stretch then, and walked across fields with sheep and cows to get to the start of the trail and the car. All up, the walk was about 9.5km, and a very nice 9.5km at that!
The next day, I was shooting back off to London on the train and back to work and normal life in the city again.