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.