A star, in mural form, stares from a peeling wall, just off Hollywood Blvd, near Hollywood and Highland.
And across the street, a little presidential encouragement for those who try and fail.
Posters and Graffiti patiently wait on a board. Waiting to become an intelligentsia coffee bar, 3922 W. Sunset Blvd.
Elliot Smith sits on Sunset.
Mural on Sunset beside the Micheltorena Street School.
The interior of the large stone circle was littered with small huts, some more elaborate than others. This one has an entryway, which is where the men of 4000 years ago would leave their umbrellas when returning home to their overstuffed chair.
And the same hut, from a different perspective.
And the ponies of the moor, eating grass from between the stones of the ancient wall that surrounded this village.
Three stone huts, lined up in perfect symmetry, this must be the very first version of a tract home. And hey, it’s even in a gated community.
My mother decided to climb up the slope to the tor looking down on the stone circle of Grimspound.
At which time it promptly started to rain sideways. So she hid behind the stones on top of the tor.
From this picture, it doesn’t look like it, but the rain was poring sideways. It came from the west, and I could feel the freezing drops splash against my eardrum, as the sideways wind tried to slide me off the slippery wet stones.
We both finally made it to the car, dripping wet, with my jacket soaked through. But happily, because of my wellies, my feet were dry.
I think I succeeded in finding my stone huts.
After the coffee and the fire at the Two Bridges hotel warmed our bones, we set out again as it was not raining at the moment.
I had read a couple websites, and a couple guidebooks on how to get to Grimspound. It seems, if the weather is nice and a walk is in order, to park across the street from the Warren House Inn and then head in a general easterly direction.
But today the rain was coming in waves, so we decided to park on the road, only a half mile or so from the stone circle and walk up from there.
The only question was where the stone circle actually was, so with a few u-turns and some guess work with the map we found a small dirt space beside the road to park the can and we headed up the hill.
Water, from all the rains, ran down the hill.
Towards the road where we had parked the car. And just for informational sake, the Warren House Inn, is on the other side of the hill.
It must rain here a lot, because someone built a channel for the water. I wonder how long ago this was built? 100 years? 500 years? Or maybe the same time the stone circles had been built, 3000-5000 years ago.
An excerpt from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
“In the evening I put on my waterproof and I walked far upon the sodden moor, full of dark imaginings, the rain beating upon my face and the wind whistling about my ears. God help those who wander into the Great Mire now, for even the firm uplands are becming a morass. I found the Tor upon which I had seen the solitary watcher, and from its craggy summit I looked out myself across the melancholy downs. Rain squalls drifted across their russet face, and the heavy, slate-coloured clouds hung low over the landscape, trailing in gray wreaths down the sides of the fantastic hills. In the distant hollow on the left, half hidden by the mist, the two thin towers of Baskerville Hall rose above the trees. They were the only signs of human life which I could see, save only those prehistoric huts which lay thickly upon the slopes of the hills.”
And I wondered how long ago, this path, that led up to the stone circle, had been laid.
And then we were at the stone circle. I was expecting small round huts, about the size of an igloo. Those huts were here, but I had not expected the grand circle of stone that surrounded the whole village.
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Another excerpt from The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle:
“The barren scene, the sense of loneliness, and the mystery and urgency of my task all struck a chill into my heart. The boy was nowhere to be seen. But down beneath me in a cleft of the hills there was a circle of the old stone huts, and in the middle of them there was one which retained sufficent roof to act as a screen against the weather. My heart leapt wihin me as I saw it. this must be the burrow where the stranger lurked. At last my foot was on the threshold of his hiding place – his secret was within my grasp.”
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And then there was my stone hut, or at least the remains of it.
Click here to visit: Stone Circles, Sherlock Holmes and the Rain at Grimspound [Part 3]
In this continuing adventure of walking on the moor, we had left my mother and I suceeding in only two of our three goals.
[For the first adventure click here: The Devon Moors: Walking Near Two Bridges, [Part 1] ]
We had found beautiful scenery, more than enough to make the stunningly beautiful seem ordinary again. Until rounding another corner and something amazing shines into view.
The ground was soaked, so my second reason, to break in my new wellies, worked perfectly.
But the third, to find the hut where Sherlock Holmes slept in The Hound of the Baskervilles eluded me.
So today we were heading for the stone circle at Grimspound.
That’s such a great word Grimspound: a pound of grim.
The weather was worse today than it was on our other journey to Dartmoor, but we set out anyway, there is really no way of knowing what the weather will be like in Dartmoor until you get there.
It rained most of the way, as we wound back and forth down the tiny lanes, with the green rolling hills on either side and the rain pattering on the windscreen.
But maybe a half a mile from Grimspound, the sun came out and so did the rainbows.
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And the scenery did not need the help of rainbows to make it beautiful.
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But as I stood by the side of the car, clicking away at the green and gray surroundings, the rains came back, and so we continued driving on the road, past where we were supposed to stop to see Grimspound, which we saw no clues on how to visit and drove on, wondering what to do.
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Shortly we came across the main road through Dartmoor,
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and decided the only reasonable thing to do was to have a cup of coffee at the nearby Two Bridges hotel.
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Click here to visit: Stone Circles, Sherlock Holmes and the Rain at Grimspound [Part 2]
Lydford Gorge is a Valley on the edge of Dartmoor, sandwiched between Devon and Cornwell in Southern England.
My mother and I visited it one afternoon, between December showers, and I can’t describe how beautiful it is,
so here are some more pictures.
As it was early November in Lydford Gorge, the trees were turning along the edge of the river.
As I walked the long way back up the hill, which followed for a short time the river.
It felt warm and magical, (despite the 50 degree chill) as all the ground was covered with leaves, and all the branches and roots were covered with moss.
Hidden away behind the barred door, is the remains of a mine shaft probably dug somewhere at the end of the 18th century or the beginning of the 19th century. It is assumed that this horizontal mine shaft was exploring for copper, but lead and silver were also extracted from mines in this area.
The mine is now home to a population of Greater and Lesser Horseshoe Bats.
Water drips everywhere, and through everything. Even when there are no streams, the water here is flowing directly out from the edge of a hill.
The blue water, the brown leaves and the green tree reflect the colors of the gorge.
Before the stroll back, we stopped for a cup of tea, and had a visitor.
On the way home, the sun came out in its full strength, and the trees glowed.
Lydford Gorge is a Valley on the edge of Dartmoor, sandwiched between Devon and Cornwell in Southern England.
My mother and I visited it one afternoon, between December showers, and I can’t describe how beautiful it is,
so here are some more pictures.
The trail led along the edge of the valley, looking down to intermittent views of the forest below.
Then there was the stream that fed the White Lady Waterfall.
Then a decision had to be made, an my mother, being the adventurous one, took the more difficult path.
The ‘Short and Steep’ path.
Which we were rewarded with at the bottom was the White lady Waterfall itself.
At the bottom, the fall leaves stuck to the submerged rocks, as the waterfall made the only noise in the valley.
And there was green, green everywhere, in between the falling water.
Lydford Gorge is a Valley on the edge of Dartmoor. Sandwiched between Devon and Cornwell, in Southern England.
It’s sumptuous with water and green, unlike the Los Angeles Desert that I come from.
It was early December when my mother and I arrived, it was cold, in the 50’s and it had been raining the past few days, and would again this afternoon.
But we were lucky, because the sun came out for our afternoon stroll.
The Gorge is a National Trust Protected site, so there are trails and signs to point the way.
There was one constant in Lydford Gorge today, and that was water, because it was everywhere, finding rivulets and pathways down the gorge walls.
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The next photograph is a 360 degree panorama taken from the second tor.
[Please click on it to see it at full size, and maybe even click on it twice if your browser scales photographs for size.]
Starting on the left of the photograph, the oak trees are just barely visible in the valley of the stream, with the path leading up to the tors. Then there is the big mound which is the first and largest tor. And leading round opposite from the first tor is the third tor, (as I am standing on the second) and invisible Two Bridges in the distance, and finally at the far right, the root of oaks is just barely visible again.
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While standing on the tor, a drop of water fell on my jacket. The clouds were massing, making a spirited attempt to dump its water on me.
But I was prepared.
I knew that it rained as much as a jungle here, and this was the wet season, so I had bought myself a pair of wellies. For those of you who don’t know, wellies are the boots that Paddington Bear wears. They are also the boots that everyone in the country owns, because they are made from rubber and are completely waterproof to the knees.
They make splashing around in the sodden moors fun.
And the moors are sodden.
I don’t know what it’s like in the summer, but now everything was wet, and everywhere there were tiny streams. If the land was flat, there was a small bog, if there was any sort of slope, then the water ran down it.
It’s good to put your feet together and jump up and down in the puddles on the moor.
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As the clouds massed, the wind picked up, swirling around in an enthusiastic and freezing cold way. Large single drops of rain continued to fall, and in the distance the sun attempted to shine through.
So I took some pictures from the third tor.
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The sun was working hard to shine through, even throwing one single beam of light to the ground.
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Before it gave up entirely to the clouds. At this point the large drops of rain stopped, to be replaced by a thick wet mist, which covered my glasses, so I had to keep looking over them to see where I was going.
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The guide book said there were Bronze Age ruins on this hill. But I never found them. And now I was cold and wet and slightly disappointed I had not come across some stone circle huts.
Which made me smile in a strange way, because that meant that I would have to come back to the moors, to find my Sherlock Holmes hut.
And as I tromped down the hill, sloshing my wellies in the water, I came across a little piece of beauty, a gate from some long forgotten farmer.
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And at the bottom of the hill, my mother was waiting for me at the hotel, sitting on a couch, with a warm red fire, a cup of tea, and what looked like a blind, 20-year-old cat that had decided my mothers lap was the place it was going to stay for eternity.
My mother was perfectly happy.
And I slowly became warm.
Over one of the round soft hills, and suddenly there is a grove of trees. An out of place grove of trees, which can’t even be seen for most of the walk. This (pod? leave? root) that’s it, a random group of trees is now called a root of trees.
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Where was I, oh yes, this root of trees standing in an almost perfect rectangle, next to the small stream, is filled with oak trees, gnarled and twisted oak trees. The weather here, all 80 inches of rain a year (same as the Amazon Jungle), and the wind, twist the oaks into strange formations. While the trees guard, or protect the ground underneath their strange limbs so mosses and lichen can grow on the ankle twisting boulders.
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Everywhere there is something growing, even parasitically on the branches themselves.
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Just below the root of oaks, is the stream, guarded by a modern stone wall, and an even more modern fence of barbed wire.
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On the other side from the stream, a grassy path leads up the hill to the tors. Which is where my mother decided to turn round, and search out the warmth of the hotel.
A tor is basically a jagged section of rock sitting on top of the hill. They’re here because the loose soil has eroded away, leaving this chunks of granite, left over from the Carboniferous Period (360-300 million years ago).
But basically to us, there good things to climb upon.
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As the moors themselves are guarded by a spectral hound, and the paths are protected by Ian, the rampaging hippopotamus, so the tors are protected by a great white whale.
“Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering whale; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.”
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But once past the perilous whale, I decided to climb the second of the three tors. So after a very simple climb I stood on the second, or middle tor, and looked down, toward the third tor, and the piling clouds and the invisible hotel at Two Bridges and smiled at the view.
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Many people have many reasons for visiting Dartmoor, but I think mine were slightly different: To stare at the beautiful scenery till I felt like I was living in Hobbiton, till amazing, sickening cuteness drove me insane. To break in my new Wellies, and to find Sherlock Holmes and his stone hut/home while he searched for the hound of the Baskervilles.
Two out of three ain’t bad.
And oh yes, my mother came with me.
Dartmoor is a circular piece of land on the border of Cornwell and Devon, in the southeast corner of England. It is a strange etheral sort of place, a place different from most other places in England. It looks and -therefore- feels different. While most of the English countryside feels, well tame. Dartmoor feels like a place that is still wild, a place where Americans could still be attacked by werewolves if they strayed from the path after visiting a pub called ‘The Slaughtered Lamb’.
We went in the daytime, so that didn’t happen to us.
I don’t know exactly what it is that gives it this feel, it might be that there are almost no trees, or that it feels vacant, or that it feels somehow abandoned, like a haunted house.
The locals, what of them there are, take advantage of this with full economic weight, as I saw at least one little cottage, selling nick nacks and curios, of faeries on toadstools, of smiling gnomes and books of the hauntings in the area.
My mother and I drove down the small lanes that lead through this protected land. There are only small lanes that lead through this land. It was mid-November quiet, with a bracing 55 degree chill in the air and dark clouds perpetually sitting just on the horizon.
On the way in, we were accosted by some locals, who were standing just beside the road. As we slowed down to take a look, one of them trotted out in front of our car, so we stopped, rolled down the window, and it came over to take a look.
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It was one of the Dartmoor ponies. They’re called ponies, but they’re fully grown, and are just diminutive in stature. They roam all over Dartmoor, eating the grass, and generally blocking traffic, to the delight of tourists, and the annoyance of locals.
Once we arrived in the town of Two Bridges -which is almost exactly in the center of the circle that is Dartmoor- it was not what I was expecting. I had poured over the collection of maps, looking for the correct walk, one that would show off the most of the beautiful landscape, and have ruins of a stone hut or two on the way. I decided a good place to walk was near the town of Two Bridges.
But Two Bridges is not a town, it’s a hotel. There are a few houses scattered about the landscape, but the whole of the place that is called Two Bridges is a hotel. And well, two bridges. Which I found out later, are not the two bridges that gave this place it’s name, they are up the river a bit, and are older, and I never saw them.
It’s a beautiful old hotel, in the classic British sense, giving off the aura of a thatched roof, a front room with wingback chairs and a fire place.
It was straight out of a postcard, and made me slightly queasy in a wow-it’s-another-perfect-British-thatched-roof-white-walled-building. So I didn’t take a picture.
We parked at the small dirt parking lot at the beginning of the trail, put on our wellies and stepped through the gate.
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In the beginning the path is a dirt road for cars, but after a short distance there is a farmhouse -with generator running for electricity- and beyond it is only suitable for humans and ponies.
Dartmoor has been inhabited since the Neolithic Age, (which began some 7000 BCE). In the Bronze Age (2100 BCE-700 BCE) the climate in Dartmoor was warmer than it is now, and the area was covered with trees. As this area became converted to agriculture, the trees were chopped down for grazing and farming and the locals built walls called reaves. I did not see any reaves while walking in Dartmoor.
But I did see more recent signs of development.
About 3000 years ago, (or sometime around the year 1000 BCE, near the end of the Bronze Age) the weather changed on these moors and it became colder and wetter and the moors were mostly abandoned. It wasn’t until the end of the Dark Ages (500, or so, years ago) when people returned. When the people returned they built ‘modern’ stone walls for their farms and livestock.
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The hills roll in soft folds, with not a tree in sight, which is an optical illusion as they were sitting in the hollow straight ahead of where I was standing.
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But before the trees, we came across the legendary Hippopotamus that guards the trails in Dartmoor. It is said that if you stray too far from the path, the Hippo, who is innocently named Ian, will gobble you all down. Chomp, Chomp, Chomp.
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Throughout the walk, the clouds raced across the sky. Most of the time hiding the sun and helping the chill wind blow, but every once in a while the sun shone through.
This time the sun shone from behind, looking back on the path we had traveled, with the sun reflecting on the stream, and the invisible town of Two Bridges in the distance.
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P.S. That story about the hippo named Ian, I made up. It’s really the great spectral hound that will eat you up. Crunch, Crunch, Crunch.
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There is a street in Budleigh Salterton (Devon, England) called Dark Lane, which my mother assured me we had to drive down.
So we did.
And I still have questions.
A few days later, I went back with my camera.
On the walk up from the center of town, there is a small lane where a stream cuts across the road, so the cars have to splash through, but the pedestrians have a bridge.
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The entrance to Dark Lane is innocuous enough.
Just like every other small British lane, with hedgerows, hiding a home and some fields.
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But once the trees blanket the sky, Dark lane suddenly becomes, well, dark.
It cuts through the land, through the red clayish soil.
And I don’t know why there is this furrow here. There seems no reason to cut a swath through the land, just for a small road, on the edge of a small town.
But then again, the reason might just be, because it’s beautiful.
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With the trees growing together over head, and the road only wide enough for a small car, it is always twilight in this passage, the perfect place for locals to come and carve their names.
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Or the love of a person whose name starts with L.
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But my favorite is the roots climbing down the walls, like fingers trying to pry the chasm apart.
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Or how somehow I suddenly feel like a Hobbit, or a Troll, living underground.
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And then suddenly it ends, and the bright sunlight of a British November day awaits.
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With a typical, highly photogenic, thatched barn just down the street.
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Click here to visit Six Photographs: Random England [Part 1]
The photographs in this essay were all taken along the river or estuary of the River Exe, between the towns of Exeter and Exmouth, Devon England.
A seagull, or as Maude calls them, Glorious Birds, above the beach in Exmouth.
Beside the river Exe, underneath a bridge, sits an empty vodka bottle, and a comment on the world.
High tide near the town of Lympstone.
The tide lowers near the town of Lympstone, showing wet stones.
Afternoon on the beach in Exmouth.
The wind blows sand along the beach in Exmouth.
