9th October

Last weekend was too wet and too work filled for walking, so today we were glad that at least the morning looked dry.  Aware that the sun might not hang around for long, another short walk was planned.  We drove via Ashburton to one of the car parks beneath Saddle Tor.

Saddle Tor (428m) does look like a saddle, and it's an easy walk to the summit, if wet underfoot at the moment.  From there we headed to Fitches Holt (413m), which is part of Emsworthy Rocks (399m).  The latter are famous for photos of one particular tree, but the tor itself stretches over a wide area.  Jonathan's website doesn't include one at the moment, so the link is from one of his photographer friends, Neil Porter.  For the benefit of keeping going on our walks, Jonathan sticks to the camera on his phone!

Just down the hill from there is also Little Emsworthy (357m), from where we made our way through the brown bracken to Little Holwell (389m).

You will see from this photo of part of  Holwell Tor (402m) that we should have known what was coming later!

Our last tor was the iconic Haytor Rocks (457m).  Two outcrops, one of which when approached from Saddle, Emsworthy or Holwell looks as though you would need to be a climber to climb it.  I did discover though, that from the other side, there are steps made in the rocks, so although I didn't quite make the very top, that's me waving in the middle!

We then sheltered from the wind beside the other outcrop to have a hot drink.  Unfortunately, in the time it took for me to climb and for us to have a drink, the weather drew in.  As we began to retrace our steps towards Saddle Tor and the car beyond, the rain began.  And it was proper rain.  And we'd left our waterproof trousers in the car.  Suffice to say, we became soggy very quickly!