When my friend Amy asked if I could take her wild camping this summer, of course, my answer was, “YES!”.

Unfortunately, the ‘Great British summertime’ was a no-show on the day that we’d planned for our hike, so like the sensible adults we are, we let the worst of the rain blow over before we began romping around the Moor.

We arrived at Row Tor car park (just up the road a smidge from Okehampton Army Camp) where we whacked the waterproofs on, concluded that we weren’t going to have much of a view, and decided that we still wanted an adventure. So with that, we left the car behind and got walking.

Our route took us below Row Tor and up to West Mill Tor.

We then took the big climb up Yes Tor… with a few rest stops on the way up.

It is such a killer of an assent going on a bearing straight from West Mill. With the shocking visibility, we also had a few false summits which is always…fun?

Next, we went to the highest Tor on Dartmoor, High Willhays – from Yes Tor it was thankfully only an extra 5 meters of height gain rather than the 90-odd we did in quick succession to Yes Tor.

We then followed the footpath to Dinger Tor, and around Okement Hill to Steeperton Gorge to refill our water.

The weather slightly cleared at this point and the Gorge looked lovely. We could even see our final destination for the day, Oke Tor and VERY happily removed the waterproof trousers (I still hate them – great bit of essential kit, but I’m still reluctant to wear them). However, once we began walking towards Oke Tor, we lost our visibility again for a while.

We weren’t alone at Oke tor, we not only saw someone else wild camping (so we moved a bit further along) but we were also joined by lots of cows that we could see a couple hundred meters away and then some inquisitive horses that came very near to our tent as we were cooking up some dinner!

We woke up to much clearer conditions and had a lovely walk beneath Belstone Common to Cullever Steps where we had a refreshing morning swim.

From here, we headed back to Row Tor car park and had a bite of lunch before setting on back home.

Was a lovely refreshing break to Dartmoor. I think our distance totalled around 15km on day one and a humbling 5km on day two.

But it was great to be out on the Moors in nature away from the everyday normality, and it was so good to adventure and catch up with Amy.

As always it’s a pleasure being able to take my friends on trips like these… especially when I don’t get us lost!

My brain felt super mentally refreshed after this — wish I had the time to go every week!