The Two Moors Way

Across dramatic twisted Tors lying on moorland carpets of purple heather and yellow gorse, contrasted with timeless green rolling valleys in an unvisited mid Devon. Have no doubt the Two Moors Way is a national trail of incredible variety, inspiration, and quite simply magnificent beauty for any walker that steps up to the challenge. A perfect weeks walk on a route that links the only two National Parks in Southern England with the West Country’s most unspoilt rural backwaters, and blends this journey faithfully into a fascinating pilgrimage running from coast to coast. ​ Walking on wild, isolated Dartmoor National Park offers true freedom to roam where you see fit over its open access moorland in one of England’s last areas of sweeping wilderness. Yet this walk is so much more than heather and hills. Dartmoor has more Neolithic and Prehistoric sites than any other National Park in Europe and between the rocky Tors, a string of standing stones, abandoned Tin mines, lonely crosses and ancient stone clapper bridges line your route along with one of the region’s most important and impressive Bronze Age Village remains at dramatic Grimspound. ​ On Exmoor National Park in the land of Lorna Doone the Moorland literally tumbles into the sea, where dramatic hanging valleys and gushing gorges break up moorland climbs alive with wild ponies, red deer, buzzards, kites and curlew. Two very different days of walking separate these two moors through the hidden heart of Devon, walking a tunnel of enchanting woodlands, deep river valleys, green lanes and ancient drove roads bursting with wild flowers and wildlife. ​ You will find isolated farmsteads, medieval bridges and a string of unspoilt and rarely visited West Country Villages - real places, of thatched cob cottages, pretty square towered churches and traditional pubs with a warm rural welcome. Overnight stays where you will meet with real people leading real rural lives, an experience often impossible to find elsewhere in the cream tea fuelled tourist haunts of coastal South Devon. ​ For the walker the sheer variety of terrain on The Two Moors Way is worth every step of the journey and as for its highlights this is the one walk where we hardly ever get the same feedback from our walkers. One may predict the highlight to be the thundering Teign Gorge below fortified Castle Drogo, the ancient Tarr Steps Clapper Bridge alive with kingfishers on its riverside trail to Withypool, the thrill of stalking a herd of Deer at Exe Head or the splash of an otter in the River Dart. Yet it’s just as likely to be that hour chatting about the afternoons walk with the locals in front of a roaring fire in the Black Dog Inn or one of those pleasing days in between the moors wandering through rolling valleys and meadows, leaving a simple peaceful satisfaction within, that is so hard to find in this modern age. Why not walk it and see!