Walking: Princetown - Abbot's Way circular walk

Last weekend was my birthday and I decided that, as I was going to be spending it in my own, I would go for a long walk on Dartmoor.  Partly because I wanted to go somewhere beautiful and outside to celebrate and partly because I wanted to test myself.  I've noticed recently that I am feeling less confident in myself and what has been particularly weird for me is that I've really noticed it when I've been outdoors.  As being in the middle of nowhere is normally where I'm happiest it's important for me to fix this and one of the ways of doing this is to get myself out of my comfort zone.

The original plan was to do the longest walk in the Wild Swimming Walks Dartmoor and South Devon book, but when we were researching the parking situation Ed found out that they had had to close the car park due to overuse and damage to the surrounding vegetation.  It also turned out, when I looked at the route more closely, that we had done most of the walk already so I'd just be going over the same ground.  So a new route was needed and I decided I would plot my own.  I have the OS Maps app on my phone so it was pretty easy to plot a route that would be about a 5 hour walk and, because it's me, I wanted to pick a route that would need some orienteering to ensure I stayed on route.  I am a little rusty on that front and wanted to practice, but this rustiness definitely showed itself later in the walk.

I parked at main car park in the centre of Princetown and headed up the bridleway (called Jobber's Road on some maps) towards the South Hessary Tor and onto Nun's Cross farm.  It was at this point where I got of the main track and followed the route south east on a dog legged path that becomes Abbot's Way.  Part of this path didn't always seem particularly obvious, but it was easy enough to get a bearing and following in the right direction until it became more obvious again just before Plym Ford.  As it had been dry and pretty hot for most of that week the ground was pretty dry which did make it a lot easier to walk on than it might otherwise have been.  I always love looking at some of the odd names given to some of the areas on the map and at one point the path went between Great Gnats' Head and Little Gnats'Head.  Though thankfully there were no actual gnats there.

Up to this point I was pretty happy.  The weather was good, my legs felt strong, I had managed to navigate myself pretty well, I could hear sky larks, and apart from a few people in the distance I hadn't really come across another human being.  But it then went just a little bit off.  I had gotten to the head of Erme River, crossed over the ford and was looking for the path that basically goes directly north when I realised I had gone a little bit too far east.  My instinct was to retrace my steps to find the right location but for some reason I decided to override this and take a bearing that would have, theoretically, gotten me back on the path further up.  Needless to say it didn't, probably because at that point there weren't any distinctive features I could use to aim at and this meant that I drifted more east than before.  

I carried on much longer than I should have done, even though I was also checking my location on the OS Maps app.  However, once it became clear that I was really far off the mark and that I was getting into some pretty dangerous terrain I decided to stop being an idiot and cut directly west which I knew would mean I would find some features I could use to properly navigate from.  I was lucky that it had been so dry otherwise it could have turned out far worse than it had.  Although, if it had been much wetter I probably would have turned back sooner.

Thankfully it wasn't too long before I saw Fox Tor which gave me something to head towards.  However,  whilst seeing that was a mood lifter it was still a lot of work to get there and my legs where getting a real work out at this point.  It was a real joy to actually get to Fox Tor, sit on one of the stones, put on some layers, relax, and eat some lunch.  Once there I got my bearings properly and worked out what I wanted to do next.  The original plan was to to follow the path down into Foxtor Mires to Whiteworks and then walk west back onto the bridleway that would take me back to Princetown.  However, that route would mean walking through more mire and looking at it from above the path wasn't particularly obvious.  I decided I'd had enough of that for the day and that instead I would follow the old stone wall just below the Tor west which would take me to a path that would lead back to Nun's Cross farm and onto the bridleway much sooner.  This was a much safer route.

Despite getting lost on the second half of the walk I did still enjoy myself, mostly because I had been outside on my own in good weather doing something I really enjoy.  It was a very good reminder though to be much more careful when I'm outside.  Had the conditions been wetter and the mist come down I could have been in a much more dangerous situation.  I've learnt my lesson and will bear this in mind the next time I'm out navigating in wilder places.  

As for my confidence, well weirdly it hasn't dented it.  My initial instinct was actually right and, ironically, I should have had the confidence to just follow it.  I would have been in a much better situation if I had.  It's also weird how calm I stayed despite being in a situation where it would have been perfectly normal to panic.  I was aware that panicking was a possibility, but my brain remained completely calm which, in the end, allowed me to logically get myself out of the situation, and it was a good reminder to myself that that's how I react to these situations.  In fact, I now want to get out much more to do these walks and to get a lot more practice in orienteering.  Though next time I might take my OS map instead of my Harvey map despite it being bulkier and fiddly to use as it has a lot more detail on it to navigate from - at least until I get back into the swing of things.  Oh, and I have made the intended route public on the OS Maps app if anyone else wants to give it a go.