It seemed, as they say, a good idea at the time. Tim G had pointed out that every Ten Tors we all loll around on Sittaford Tor and Quintin's Man watching the little darlings trudge wearily by; why therefore should not some of us try it for ourselves ? So on Saturday July 22, nine of us set out on our own 35-miler which almost 20 hours walking later, left those who had never done it before with considerable respect for the normal youthsome participants.

On the Friday, Fionn & Craig, Tim G and Tim H, Keith, Rob Hutch, Dave U, Roy and Nigel gathered at the White Hart Hotel, sank some bevies, munched supper and motored up the the Battle Camp within which the commandant had very kindly given us parking permits. We pitched tents by the normal start line. Before turning in, four of us rescued a ewe caught between fence and wall and Hutch magicked up a missing collie called Scampi for his distraught owner, from whom the dog had bolted when the army let of a load of bangs earlier in the day. As someone remarked, on this occasion Scampi had not had his chips.

The morning broke with windy echoes from tents and much happy badinage while ghostly patrols of camoed soldiers worked their way up either side of the track below us. We later found them furiously shouting "Bang" "Bang" at each other. Presumably all the real bullets have been sent to Iraq and Affers.

Our first tor was Hare, way over to the west. Despite a forecasted appearance of truly melanomic intensity, the sun did not yet have its hat on and the walking was easy to Dinger with much happy chatter. The first circulatory challenge was the heave up the eastern side of Amicombe Hill, largely through tussock and clitter beneath a suddenly blazing sun. Craig thought he remembered from way back when, a path from Green Tor which would keep us high enough to go along the ridge of Rattle Brook Hill. He remembered right. We finally lumbered up to our first tor some 3 hours after starting off. The chattering had become slightly less intense. After elevensies and a brew, Hutch did the happy snap and we surged off to tor 2 at Lynch, around 4k off. Snap Number Two and off to Great Staple which produced our only navigational misjudgement rather than error. The plan was to hit the White Barrow track, turn W and fall off the wall at its corner, taking a direct bearing to Roos Tor over Petertavy Great Common. It might have been better to have taken an easterly route following down to the W of the Walkham coz even after the hottest July in the universe, the Great Common was entertainingly soggy in places. With several stops and retracings, Roy made it across first, despite an alarming habit of stopping for seemingly far too long on seriously undulating ground while he figured out where to go next. Keith who had been communing with Nature while the route was agreed , was deeply scathing about it and we in turn were deeply scathing about his timing.

Our fifth objective, Black Tor sorted out the men from the girls' blouses. Actually, it turned out we were all blouses. The Dartmoor Inn at Merrivale was a must for a quaff, but because the sun now most definitely had its very biggest hat on and in places granite was smouldering, we decided to veg out for about 90 minutes in the pub's shade, sipping for the most part from sasparellas and fruit joos.

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