LEJOG Day 14: Lydford to Okehampton

Weather: Sunny, hot and hazy with a slight breeze

Distance covered today: 18.4km (11.4 mi)

Last night's B&B: Heathergate (£30)

% Complete: 13.5%

GPS satellite track of today's route:Day 14 (Click!)

Second warning!  I was looking at my map, trying to work out a tricky bit in the Meldon Gorge, not far from Okehampton. I was tired, though not so much as yesterday, and possibly not concentrating as hard as I should have been.  I trod on the edge of a pothole without seeing it, my ankle collapsed outwards and I went down like a sack of potatoes, swearing loudly!  Fortunately, I was moving quite quickly at the time, so I skimmed along the path without doing too much damage. There was an ominous red stain immediately visible through my trousers on my trailing knee, but on inspection, it was just a graze. I was more worried about my ankle, but it was easily weight-bearing and everything else seemed to be in working order. My satnav which had been in my free hand, skated along the path, but survived unscathed and fortunately my poor wounded netbook was deeply buried in my backpack, so it too survived the crash with no further deterioration.

Still, two major falls within a couple of weeks isn’t good practice. These bones are old enough not to accept too much of that sort of punishment.  I’ve been saying that apart from some sort of emergency, the only two things that will prevent me from completing my journey will be illness or injury. I may not be able to do much about illness, but I certainly need to redouble my efforts to avoid the latter.  And now that my ankle has had a chance to cool down, it’s feeling unsettlingly stiff and a little sore.  I can hear Veronica already, stating “RICE” In a commanding tone of voice (Rest, Ice, Compression & Elevation).  I will be good….

This incident bracketed a day of contrasts. I started out in the delightful Devonian countryside. Then came the ominously high and very atmospheric moors, followed by a descent back into the countryside.  Today I made two major transitions. With Dartmoor now behind me, I have crossed the watershed and all the rivers are now running South to North. Equally, I crossed the snarling A30 which was working itself up into frenzy with pre-Easter traffic bound for Cornwall trying to avoid the rush that starts tonight and will probably drive traffic to a crawl.  All this seems somehow symbolic.  From now on, I feel I’m travelling towards the heart of England.

As I indicated yesterday, the route today required me to climb over the edge of Dartmoor.  As I panted upwards, it became clear that the surface of the moor was covered by a layer of mossy, peat-like moorland, through which the granite regularly protruded.  These outcrops appear massively fractured, presumably by huge forces in geological time and I can easily imagine that as the cold fronts from the South-West drive inland and the air rises and cools over these moors, the clouds let go and the pelting rainwater percolates through the fractured granite into the aquifers below. This explains the remarkable number of permanent rivers in the area and probably also explains why the agricultural land around the moors is so verdant and productive. The contrast between the brown moors and the lowlands is quite spectacular.  The question for me is why is there so little vegetation on the moors? One would think that with all the rainfall, the moors would be covered in trees at the very least.

My route took me past a number of Dartmoor ponies, along with their new-born foals and a few very pregnant mares. They seemed completely unfussed by the presence of a stranger, and it was the foals rather than their mothers who seemed nervous.  The view from the top of the moor was spectacular, though the heat-haze limited the radius of vision. Walking down the other side, accompanied by the call of skylarks, watching the ponies go about their business completely freely on the huge moor, I had one of those rather profound moments of peace that doesn’t happen very often.  I did though realise that the ponies might seem content, but their numbers have declined dramatically over the years, and despite their reputation for toughness, they live in a harsh environment on the edge of existence.   Then I had my accident…..

For some reason, the ponies and the fall made me think of Teilhard de Chardin.  Many years ago at school in Grahamstown, for a reason that I can’t fathom, the Jesuits asked me to read to them a book by de Chardin during meals in their refectory. At the time, I had little idea who he was, or indeed what the significance of those readings was. In truth, I still don’t know.  I do now know that de Chardin was a Jesuit who got into hot water with the highest Catholic authorities for teaching stuff that was deemed to be against church dogma. He was a palaeontologist and the school had a special interest in palaeontology, but this may have been coincidental.  I think that this particular group of Jesuits rather agreed with de Chardin’s views, and I was an unwitting medium for the semi-silent transmittal of his ideas.

For me though, the experience was something else. Suddenly, a voice would boom out from amongst the assembled, highly qualified, Jesuits, “Do you have an opinion on that, boy?”  I was so busy trying to read the text without error or stammer that I had no time to think about what the author was actually saying and in any case he seemed to be saying it in Double Dutch. “No Father, I do not. I’m afraid I don’t understand it.” “Then concentrate, boy. No point in reading something if you don’t have an opinion!” There would be grunts of agreement around the room and I would wish that I could disappear into a hole in the floor.

I remember that around that time an eminent palaeontologist was invited to address us. He was asked whether he thought that evolution was continuing for human beings. He replied that he thought it had stopped because people now adapted the environment to their own needs, rather than themselves adapting through natural selection to the changing environment. It sounded a plausible argument at the time, (though I no longer agree with it).
 
Was there a connection? Were the Jesuits using de Chardin’s palaeontology as a way of learning about and legitimising his then unacceptable ideas on the development of the cosmos and of the concept of original sin? It is certainly true that the Catholic Church has gradually relented and his ideas are now widely accepted in the Church. I find it amazing, and somehow self-defeating that a church whose dogma has been formed over two millennia can have changed so fundamentally over the course of my lifetime.

The Jesuits taught religion through a mixture of logic and fear. The logic was naturally related to the questions of eternity and origin, and the fear was all about making the fundamental existentialist mistake of misbelieving (and even worse, misbehaving) and therefore winding up on the wrong side of a vengeful God.  The strength of their argument owed much to their obvious erudition and their status as authority figures. The trouble was most of my classmates weren’t the vaguest bit interested in the argument and their backgrounds anyway denied any status to authority. Yet, they all went regularly to mass and practised the rest of the routine of religion as if it was quite normal. I found it all very confusing and I had to think long and hard about it.

I still do.

A bridge consisting of a large piece of granite over one of the many streams 

Taking a short break at another stream

Lush fields strewn with daisies and dandelions

Just before climbing the moor, I chanced on this weird pub, called the Highwayman.

The path started to climb the moor. Today I hardly walked on any roads at all

Nearing the Tor (rocky summit), near Sourton

A piece of granite showing fractures amongst the lichen and general weathering

Dartmoor ponies

Mum and foal, plus an aunt?

A very pregnant lady!

Back down to the verdant lowlands

My path into Oakehampton; a cycle track along a disused railway line