Haytor Hike - 20/11/16

Hi Guys,

Just thought we’d throw together a quick little blog on the weekends adventures, out and about at Haytor, Dartmoor National Park.

With a pretty heavy storm front passing through the night before, we were hoping people’s spirits weren’t too dampened and while we had a number of dropouts, there were still tons of people bounding around Haytor. If anything, the weather front seemed to have dragged most of the bad weather away with it and we were greeted with a cool but beautiful morning.

Rocking up around 9:30 Joe and I tossed up our display tents and had a coffee with the wonderful miss Wendy. I might add that our coffee was piping hot thanks to our NatureHike 1.2L Stainless Steel Thermos.  :-)

It wasn’t long before we were chatting to Shane - a local letterboxing guru and a cheerful character. Apparently our Facebook posts have been working as he came over saying, “I know you, your the Facebook guys!!! Nice tents!” Having talked through the waterproof ratings of our different tents and discussed the benefits of 20D silicone infused nylon when compared with 210T polyester, Shane was off.

Later, Helen came over to say hello. Having a good chat about the beautiful Dartmoor scenery and waxing lyrical about the vivid colours of our gear, it was great to see someone who doesn’t usually spend too much time in this neck of the woods, enjoying the scenery.We’re hoping that she does make it back down to take her daughter out camping in Devon in the not too distant future hopefully!

Finally packing up our display after lunch we set off for a wander - Across to the quarry ponds where you can see the old quarry winding gear, tooling marks from splitting the granite and the picturesque, lily covered ponds. If you sit long enough, you can occasionally spot the goldfish in the ponds, allegedly left there by people returning from the local fair, many moons ago.

From there we traipsed across to Houndtor, another rock formation right beside the ruins of a 13th Century stone village. Walking through the low walls of the abandoned village, your imagination runs away with you. Dragging you back into the 13th century life of ancient English villagers.

After waltzing through the ancient village, walking in the footsteps of ghosts, we wandered back over the road and along the valley back to the Haytor Visitors Centre.

The whole time we were traipsing about with a NatureHike 70L Ergonomic Hiking pack on, loaded with 4 x NatureHike 1.2L Stainless Steel Thermos, 1 x NatureHike Cloud UP Lightweight 1 Man tent , 1 x NatureHike 4 Man P Series Dome Tent, a NatureHike 500ml Easy Open water bottle, and a NatureHike D280 Down Filled WINTER Sleeping Bag with Hood.

Not only was it comfortable on the shoulders but with well padded hips for the waist cinch, this pack is a treat to wear. The adjustable shoulder straps ensure that the lumbar support is perfectly lined up with the curve of your pack and the waist strap pulls it in snugly to keep it in the right place from the start of the hike to the end. With limited numbers we didn’t have too many people get the chance to try these packs out but be sure to join us on our next hike and we’ll swing you one to try out!

We hope you’ve enjoyed our little jaunt and enjoy the pictures below (sorry they’re not the greatest but the old iPhone isn’t quite a Canon.

Cheers!

Sean, Joe and Wendy

The All Four Outdoors Crew

PS - Check out some of our photos below!