This is my wife Faith, the one on the right with the blonde hair. The one on the left is not her which, for most people, should be reasonably obvious. I took this photo at Dartmoor National Park, Devon UK on a cool but lovely summer day last year.
Note the road running to left of shot...And the pony on said road. Seems odd right? It's not though. That's a Dartmoor pony and they wander freely across the area which is pretty cool I think. Here in Australia we have wild brumby's that roam the interior of the country, however many are culled (shot) as they are somewhat of a pest. In Dartmoor however the pony's are one of the main attractions and whilst wild seemed friendly enough. It was novel to encounter them and to see them running free, seemingly very happy and unmolested.
It's pretty nice place to live for the pony's I think. The landscape combines craggy, rocky terrain with valleys, creeks, rivers, forests wetlands and of course the tors which dominate the landscape. Tors are rock formations if you're wondering. The area is covered with walking trails and dotted with stone circles dating back to the Bronze Age as well as Neolithic tombs and medieval farmhouses, abandoned of course. It's an interesting place to visit and walking its valleys, open fields and forests leaves one with a feeling of...Well, age I guess. It feels like an old place.
You can, see in the image below, an old stone cross which was set into the ground; It's the reason we stopped right here. We found a small trail leading up to a tor (you can kind of see the tor right on the crest of the hill in this image.) It was a nice walk, accompanied by some pony's of course. I assume the cross marked a grave although there was no plaque telling us what it might have been, or from what approximate time in history it was from. Old relics like this can be found all over Dartmoor. The other image is, of course, Faith, pony whispering again.
Many different types of animals can be fount on Dartmoor from pony's and horses to otters, polecat's, adder's (the UK's only venomous snake), many birds and fish along with grey-face and scotch-blackface sheep amongst various others. Unfortunately you'll also see the most destructive animal on the planet there too...Humans.
Now, as far as pony whispering goes...It seems that if there is a horse (or pony) within a 5 kilometre radius of my wife it will make its way to her and make friends. We've travelled all over the world and I'm not no longer surprised if a horse just walks up behind me, bumps me out the way to get to Faith and stays around to socialise. It's not just pony's and horses though...Cats do it too. She is like a cat magnet. Come to think of it I saw some sheep on Dartmoor give it some thought as well, but we all know how skittish sheep are. They thought better of it and trundled away down the road. (Right down the middle of the road as it turned out.
Sheep whispering wasn't as successful as pony whispering.
Our time on Dartmoor was altogether too short however the time we spent there gave us a taste of all the attractions, a little sampler of what the area offers, as such. We will certainly be back to spend some more time exploring and getting to know the area and its history.
Dartmoor isn't just grass and sweeping views. It's so much more and on scratching the surface one will find a fascinating place to visit, a calming place, or so we found it, and one to put on the going back there again list.
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