Exploring Devon: Part 1

It's been a little bit difficult these last few weeks to match up mine and my partner's days off so that we could do the exploring of Devon we've been hoping to do.  Due to this, we haven't gone as many places as we originally hoped, but we have managed to get in a couple of trips and they have definitely been worth it.  

Wild Swimming - Sugary Cove

This was our first (and only so far) wild swimming trip since getting our wetsuits, but it was definitely a good one to start with.  Sugary Cove is a lovely, small cove that apparently doesn't get a lot of visitors other than the locals.  To get to it we started by parking above Dartmouth Castle and then walked along the South West Coast Path for a couple of minutes before reaching the very steep steps that take you down to the water.

I'm not going to lie, the water was very, very cold, but it's a good, sheltered bay that feels very safe to swim in.  It would be good to come back with snorkelling gear and have a proper exploration of what's lurking under the water.  Especially as these waters are pretty clear, which means there should be quite a healthy ecosystem to stare at.  We didn't spend too long in the water as I'm definitely not used to that temperature anymore, but I'm hoping I'll become more acclimatised to the temperature so I can spend more time enjoying the swim.

Walking - Wistman's Wood looped walk

This was a lovely short-ish walk to get back into the swing of things and it felt really good to get my walking boots back on.  We decided to do a looped walk as the path to Wistman's Wood on its own wasn't going to be long enough.

We started off at the Two Bridges car park and heading along the well-worn path to Wistman's Wood.  Don't be fooled by the small size of the trees (mostly beautiful oak) as they think that this wood is the remains of an ancient forest.  Most of the trees have a contorted form which, along with being covered in mosses and lichens, would give the woodland a wonderfully eerie feel on a foggy day.  This is what most of Dartmoor would have been covered with and it's a shame that it doesn't cover more area.  I liked it, but I think it would be good to go back in summer to see what it's like when it's really green.

Once we'd had a good little wonder through the woods we headed uphill towards the Tors.  We decided to walk a little further north than we had originally planned as it was so lovely to be outside and headed for Higher White Tor which we could see directly in front of us.  It did go uphill quite steeply, but I felt very comfortable doing the incline despite the lack of walking recently and, better still, I felt like I was breathing very comfortably (a problem that I've had for a few years).  

Once we'd had a good look at the view we turned back south and carried on along the high ground to the east of the woods, scrambling over Longaford Tor and walking past Littaford Tors.  Then it was back onto another well-worn path that carried us downhill towards the car park.  

In total, the walk probably took us about 2.5 hours and gave us a good view of the other areas of Dartmoor we're planning on visiting in the future.  

So, only a couple of trips this time around, but definitely more to come in the future.  The nicest surprise how easily my body took to walking again despite the length of time since I've done it properly.  The cold during swimming has been the less enjoyable part, but I'm sure I'll get used to that soon.  However, we now have a taste for it and are already planning our next trips out into the 'wilds'.  On the plus, if it keeps raining the way it has been on our days off together that doesn't affect our ability to swim.

Hoped for Relaxed-Lockdown Activities (Outside)

Now that the UK Government is beginning to reduce the restrictions we have to follow during lockdown we've been taking a realistic, rather than fantasy pie in the sky, look at what we can now do when we leave the flat.  Of course, it all involves being outside and, more specifically, going walking/trekking and wild swimming.  It's still a little vague at the moment, but this is the plan we've got going so far.

Wild Swimming

We couldn't have come to a more perfect location to go wild swimming.  Devon and Cornwall are filled with great locations and many are close enough to us that we wouldn't be breaking the 'stay local' rule advised by the Government.  We've got the wetsuits so we can spend longer in the water and will be getting a whole lot of use out of them in the coming months.

We have already had a little swim in Sugary Cover (near Dartmouth) so we know the wetsuits mostly work, though I do need to fix the arms, and these are some of the locations I'm intending on visiting next:

• Cowsic Waterfalls Pools
• Salmon Leaps, Teign
• Peartree Point
• Elberry Cove
• Haytor Quarry
• Sharrah Pool
• Anstey's Cove
• Seaton Hole

To be honest, the list is almost endless.

Walking & Trekking

This is yet another thing in which we've lucked out on location-wise as we're not only close to Dartmoor but also a number of coastal walks.  Obviously, there's no longer the mountains we're used to, but these walks are looking just as beautiful and some can be just as challenging.  We're also looking out for a good tent so that we can do some wild camping which will allow us to extend our time outside on our days off.

There are a number of day trips that we can take during our wanderings, but these are some of the longer walks I want to do in the future:

• Two Moors Way (Devon Coast to Coast) - 100 miles
• Erme-Plym Trail - 15 miles
• South West Coastal Path (Britain's longest National Trail) - 205  miles
• West Devon Way - 37 miles
• Tarka Trail - 163 miles
• Templar Way - 18 miles

It is very unlikely that these will all be done by the end of 2021, but a full-grown woman can dream.

If I'm honest, the main thing for me at the moment is just the opportunity to spend some time away from the city getting my legs moving, and where the noises are a little less traffic and people-based, and a little more wind, wildlife, and crashing seas.  I'm also really looking forward to finally being able to properly explore the area I've moved to, and I'll let you know what I find.  If there's any locations and walks you think are good and that I've missed on my little list then please let me know.  There's only so much you can find when searching online.

Walking in New Zealand during Lockdown

Here in New Zealand, we've spent the last few weeks working out way through levels 3 and 2 and, with each move, we've had a little bit more freedom allowing us to walk further away from home.  We obviously wanted to carry on doing our bit to keep Covid-19 at bay so we didn't go too mad, but we did drive a little bit to remind ourselves what the outdoors actually looked like and I thought I'd write a little bit about it here to remind everyone else.

Duder Regional Park.

This is a pretty nice park on the Whakakiawhara Peninsula with paths that take you by the coast, through a working farm, and along to the Whakakaiwhara Pa located right the very end of the peninsula.  There are actually remains of houses and pits at this Pa, but you can't see these when you're standing on the site, though there are really obvious terraces found in most Pas.

We were lucky to have a really beautiful, sunny day (a little bit strange for the fact it was actually autumn) with just the right amount of cool wind to make walking actually enjoyable.  We also took a picnic to eat by the water's edge knowing that we would have no trouble in keeping a good distance from anyone else there and enjoyed watching the birds and little fish swimming in shoals along the water's edge.  

I'm not necessarily a big fan of walking through farmland as they tend to be quite samey, but the undulation of the land was pretty unique here and the views were beautiful, including a good view of the Hanua Ranges.

Maungakiekie / One Tree Hill and Cornwall Park.

Based in the centre of Auckland, this gives you a really good view of the city - if you like that sort of thing.  The paths that head around the park are lovely gentle walks surrounded by a lot of oak trees.  One Tree Hill itself is actually the peak of a volcano, so the walk up there is a little steeper, but still pretty doable for just a casual walk.  Interestingly the hill did use to be a Pa, but it was left in the 1700s and all that remains, visually, are the terraces you can see at every angle.

The tree which gave One Tree Hill its European name (and possibly the Maori name as Maungakiekie translates as 'mountain of the kiekie vine') was cut down by one of the white settlers (it isn't sure if it was vandalism or just for firewood) and the remaining tree of those Sir John Logan Campbell (Major of Auckland in the late 1800s) tried to grow on top of the hill was attacked by Maori activists to highlight the treatment of Maori people by the New Zealand Government.  Both are a real same, purely because the trees are lovely living things, but a few years ago the Tupuna Maunga Authority held a ceremony which included the planting of young totara and pohutukawa trees (grown from parent trees on the hill) and later a kiekie tree.  

There's also a memorial obelisk to the Maori at the top and beneath this the grave of Sir John Campbell, who gave a substantial sum of money to the building of this memorial in the belief that the Maori would soon die out.  Not surprisingly this has led to some objections to it being called a memorial and suggestions that it should instead be called a centennial tower to mark the signing of the Waitangi Treaty. There's also some really cringy writing on the memorial which talks about the Maori signing the Waitangi Treaty and that they were basically happy to accept the sovereignty of the Queen and all that entailed, completely ignoring all the issues like the mistranslation of the treaty into Maori and the treatment of them after the signing.  Just as well the views are pleasant from that spot.

As before, the weather was really good for autumn and, probably because of the location, the fact it was a Sunday afternoon, and the fact that it was the first weekend in level 2, there were quite a few people there enjoying being outside again.

Hunua Ranges Regional Park.

Found to the south-east of Auckland, this range is quite a large area of native forest.  There are quite a few walks that you can do, but we stuck to the Cossey-Massey Loop and then the Hunua Falls Loop.  They're not particularly long walks, we basically took an afternoon to do both, but we did get a really good workout as the Cossey-Massey Loop takes you up quite a steep track before it flattens out into a high loop before dipping down to the Cossey dam and back round.

As with most native forests in New Zealand, the vegetation is quite dense so you don't really get much of a view of the surrounding area.  This is more about experiencing a walk through the woods and the wildlife that's there.  The only problem here was, there didn't seem to be much wildlife when we were here.  We heard a few calls and got to see a fantail up very, very close, but mostly there was a very eerie silence as we walked around.

The Hunua Falls Loop was a very easy walk and the one that most people do.  We decided to add a bit of excitement to our day (sarcasm) by crossing over the water at the falls to meet up with the path that takes you directly back to the car park.  The falls might be small, but they were still beautiful and it would be a really nice place to have a picnic before carrying having an afternoon walk. Perhaps something to do in the future.

The weather was a little bit cooler when we did this walk and much drier then it should have been, but the air was still pretty heavy within the forest, so we ended up getting quite warm despite the coolness.

Kariotahi Beach.

There's not really a whole lot to say about this one, you literally just walk up and down the beach.  However, it was so beautiful that I just wanted to add it in.  These are located to the south-west of Auckland and were probably the further we drove to go somewhere to walk, about a 45-minute drive.

It was really interesting seeing the black sand sandwiched between the ocean and what looks like sand cliffs on the land side.  There's usually quite a lot of activities that can be done here, including driving your car on it, but when we went it was pretty empty with only a few people here and there.  To me, that made spending time here all the more special.

It was quite a bit colder on this walk than others as the wind was blowing off the ocean, but the clear blue skies were amazing and really added to the views of the beach.

As things begin to open up more and more in New Zealand we're hoping to get much more further afield in our walking outings, including some walks in the South Island, before I need to head back to the UK.  However, these were lovely little walks that kept us going and sane whilst still mostly being stuck indoors during this pandemic.  The weather has really held out for us here and, I have to admit, I've really appreciated it and how it's made these walks all the more enjoyable.