48hrs with Maid in Dartmoor

Are you ready? Here’s a snippet from my crazy life as a mummy of two little explorer’s, and partner to a gadget mad adventurer. I want to start this week with a huge thank you for all the lovely comments and retweets of my blog post and pictures. I’m very excited about what blogging is doing for me and my family.  Not only is it an outlet for me to enjoy, my family are benefiting from the opportunities I have been given so far. Most of all it seems that people are enjoying reading about our family adventures, and I’m really pleased, so thanks again. 

We started by putting the bread maker on in the evening so that we had a fresh loaf ready to make our sandwiches in the morning.  All was going quite well in the morning until I realised that the sun was beating down, (not that I am complaining) but I hadn’t seen the sun cream since last year, or the girls sun hats! Eventually we had packed everything we needed into the carrier and we got into the car a few hours later than we had originally intended. We always have grand plans on a Friday night to shoot out early on a Saturday morning, and than we remember that we have been running around all week with work and school runs and this is our only time to get up a little more casually. 

We headed to Okehampton to do one of our favourite walks up the East Okement river.  Its beautiful, first you cross through fields then under the old railway viaduct and underpass. You cross beautiful bridges and wonder through woods, that at the right time of year are filled with bluebells.  There’s lots of spots to throw stones into the water, you have to cross stepping stones and climb narrow winding hills. At the highest point of our walk there is a breath taking waterfall before you drop down the other side to come out onto the moor for a fantastic half way picnic spot next to the river.  

My eldest is five and she managed the whole five mile walk on this day.   I was so impressed with her, this is quite a hard going walk, and she was a little trooper. We did have a “fly in the eye” incident, and rather dramatic “the puppy just wants to play with you” situation. My dear daughter had clung on to stick that she found along the way, dog owners probably won’t need much more information but the puppy came bounding at my five year old thinking she was going to throw the stick. Totally my daughter’s own fault as she ran away screaming with the stick still in hand, the puppy was extremely excited by all the commotion. We did eventually separate the puppy and child tug of war.  No harm done and luckily the owner seemed to find the whole thing just as amusing as I did. Lesson learnt! 

We then had our lunch and a little paddle in the water, a little chilly, but refreshed our feet nicely for the journey ahead.  We were then ready to climb up on to the moor and head back to our car, home and bed. We used view ranger to map our walk on this occasion, brilliant if you also have a smart watch as the compass is so accurate, your watch will actually point you to your next waypoint. Great for those who like to go off the beaten track.  

Next day, up early “ish” again as we have family down from London at the momen,  so we were off to visit them in Dawlish for a morning at the beach. I grabbed a towel to dry any wet toes that may be dipped in the sea.  

As I am writing this I still can’t believe that I actually thought one towel would of been enough, you would think I’d know my children better than that by now.  Both of them were soaked head to toe, they were having so much fun running in the shallow water and jumping over waves that I didn’t have the heart to tell them to stop.  My poor youngest had to be stripped off and a new nappy put on, the places she has had her bum changed in the last few days is quite comical.  We have had bum changes on the moors, in the car boot and now on the beach, there really is no dignity in being a toddler.  New nappy on and wrapped in my jumper we had to get her and the eldest which was wrapped in the one and only towel up to their Nanna and granddad’s, whilst me and my partner walk barefoot along the road until the sand dries on our feet, again because of the lack of towel problem! 

We then did have a very relaxed afternoon and nice family meal with the in laws.  With very sleepy children we headed home around six that evening.  The youngest asleep in the car with a banana in her hand after about thirty seconds of driving.  From the moors to the beach in 48 hrs, this is why we love Devon and Dartmoor.  

L x