High silent moor and low silent snow, piano, and momentary companionship

I write this from a warm bar in Moretonhampstead, while the snow falls softly outside, shimmering in the evening lights of the little town. Today has been a rest day, which I knew I needed but didn't realise how much.

At 9 on Thursday I crossed the border into Devon, over a brown, swirling, rushing Tamar. I stopped to ceremonially take pictures. This feels significant, although the first border always is. This feeling was quickly dampened by the steepest climb yet, straight uphill, uncompromisingly, to the crossroads at Gulworthy. There I saw signs to Morwellham, taking my thoughts back to a school trip to 'Darkest Dartmoor'. I kept my red Morwellham Quay pencil for years, from a time when collecting souvenirs of pencils and key rings was important. I also realised that was the last time I had been to Dartmoor. Into valley once more I passed a village called Buckland Monachorum, and whilst walking in time to the hymn tune, I wondered if they had only ever managed to recruit one person to the church choir. At midday I crossed a cattle grid and immediately the landscape changed to moor - open grassland, gorse scrub, sheep and ponies. It did exactly what it said on the map and abruptly changed at the national park border. Ascending out of the idyllic village of Horrabridge, the vast moor opened out all around me. The huge, featureless light brown hills, with strangely shaped rocky silhouettes dotting the high horizons. The track turned to soaked and boggy path, with a stream that was impossible to cross at the path. I had to fight my way through bushes upstream to find a possible crossing, and went for it, with some trepidation, but didn't fall in. Shortly after this I met a chap coming down, and we stopped to chat. He was a local Dartmoor guide, out for a free day alone without needing to look after anyone. He told me about the old mine railway line, above us, and when I answered his question about what I was doing there, he commended me for 'doing something worthwhile' and reached for his wallet to donate to the fundraising. I'm yet to be convinced this is actually really worthwhile, but it always astounds me how generous humanity is, given the conversation and place and time. I made the mistake of saying how relieved I was that it hadn't rained all day, as five minutes later what had been a distant silvery rain-mist was suddenly very present rain. I remembered that now is always the time and put all my waterproofs on. It was only a passing shower, but suddenly colder at the top, and as I started on the high disused mine railway into Princetown I felt my heart lift - the wide open space made me feel welcome and at home. 

Entering Princetown, a place I had read about and intentionally included in the route, I made for the church, looked after now by the Churches Conservation Trust. It's a dark and tall imposing building, decorated inside with commemorations to American and French POWs from the Napoleonic war, who were taken up to this high, cold, inhospitable place to build their own prison out of heavy cold granite. The chancel organ pipes were adorned with the national flags of the US, France and the UK, and there was a general atmosphere of sadness mixed with pride, mixed with regret. In the church yard there were three parallel lines of tiny identical headstones with only an initial and a date on each one. In all the description boards I couldn't find an explanation of these but wondered if they were graves of prisoners. There was something deeply mournful about them, almost anonymous, under the leaden sky. HMP Dartmoor is still operational, and I don't imagine, given the climate and the strange remoteness of the landscape that it is a much less punishing place to be sent than in the 19th century. 

The rain started to set in for the evening and so I found the bunkhouse, and was told I had it to myself for the night. I locked the doors and listened to the persistent rain hammering on the roof, and then a smiley, bearded face appeared at the window. He had booked too but they had forgotten to leave a key for him. A tree surgeon from Cornwall who often took work around Dartmoor, he was a regular at this bunkhouse, and a lovely fellow bunkhouser for the night. To be honest, after the initial wariness whilst working out if I should let him in, it was a relief to know there was someone else around as the fog descended on this high, deserted town. I had been to the shop earlier for supplies, and the shopkeeper, after recommending some fairly effective cider from the randomly stocked booze shelf, was doom-ridden about the weather forecast. If it snows in the south west, Princetown gets it first, and gets it worst. It already boasts twice the average national rainfall. 

At some point during the night the rain stopped, and the morning was fresh and almost bright. What I thought was a monochrome light brown was changing colour all the time. Distant rain mists were lit by intermittent sun, and all was quiet. Leaving the town heading north west gave a different view of the prison, dark and threatening and a deep grey colour, under North Hessary Tor. The first little rain shower came over as I turned off to Bellever. After resting by an incomplete Clapper Bridge, with ponies passing the time ignoring me and eating greenery - they are such chilled and peaceful creatures - the sky darkened. The rain then came. First torrential downpour, and then torrential hail. It was quite painful hitting the top of my head, even with a hood on. I passed over a saddle between two Tors and walked through the Grimspound - an interestingly unmarked (apart from on the map) large circle of stones, with smaller circles inside. An ancient dwelling place under a purple grey sky, crunchy with inches of fresh hail. I stopped in the centre of it, in a break between showers, and wondered at the ghosts of an ancient dwelling, unseen and undescribed. 

The day was becoming longer than expected, as through the next valley I ascended steeply up to the church at North Bovey. Intending it purely as a shelter from the oncoming shower (you can feel it in the air) I went inside. There in the fading light of the north aisle was a grand piano, with a little sign balanced on it saying 'You are welcome to play the piano'. I sat down in full waterproofs and wet boots and played. And I really played it, in spite of the sticking notes, probably caused by the damp. My playing, of 'Solace' and 'Resignation' was accompanied by water dripping down the inside of the walls. I lost myself for a while until I realised I was very cold. I dragged myself away from the lovely lonely piano and plodded the last mile to Moretonhampstead, trying to work out whether I could still feel my feet.

I found the backpackers hostel, relieved that in my planning last month I had the forethought to have three consecutive nights not in the tent, not knowing about the impending weather at the time. I was shown into a warm and welcoming kitchen, with a huge table covered by a shabby tablecloth, and a big old kitchen sink in the corner. My only other fellow hosteller was cooking and had spread out with his work on the table. I'm not sure he wasn't surprised at my appearing but gave a kind, homely feeling to the place. I was a little grumpy when I first arrived, for which I feel very penitent. I was wet and cold and I had my heart set on a washing machine - when cold and tiredness prevails it makes you irrationally single-minded and all I could think about was that I had run out of socks. A mug of tea and a shower changed that. I did wash my socks in a big sink and they are now dry and clean. And a very wonderful evening was spent at the kitchen table with beer, both of us doing our own writing and occasionally chatting, and then just chatting - exchanging stories and thoughts and wonderings about travelling and walking, people and places, news and the meaning of things. And it was relaxed and generous and funny. And I am thankful.

So today I have stayed in Moretonhampstead and enjoyed my first rest day, and my knees are definitely appreciating this. The snow has fallen, as predicted. It feels very cold outside. I did go up to the church in the snow, after spending a couple of hours in the only cafe open. I found a grand piano and it was open. This one had no sign on it, but there was no one else around so I sat down and played. It felt like playing in a big fridge, and as I closed the piano lid, I turned and saw a lady had been listening, gently weeping. 

Tomorrow I walk again, undoubtably in falling snow if the forecast is correct. I'm planning to be back in the tent for the foreseeable future. I guess I will need to see what happens. I am planning to wear as many layers as possible tomorrow.