Dorking Hole Hill Explorers Take On Dartmoor
Recently 2x Explorer Scouts from the Hole Hill ESU (Scouts aged between 14>18) undertook their Gold Duke of Edinburgh Qualifier Expedition with Surrey Scouts, read on for their own account of this recent adventure!
In August of 2024, we travelled in a convoy of minibuses from Guildford down to Dartmoor with a group of other Surrey Scouts to complete our D of E Gold expeditions. We were in a group with four others, none of who we had met before, but who we had done all our food and route planning with. We were all extremely nervous on the coach down, as 5 days walking with 18kg on your back is no easy feat, but we all relaxed as we got to know each other and realised we would have a really fun (and challenging) few days, we setup camp at a local Scout Hall in Okehampton full of anticipation of what was to come on the preparation hike the following morning!
As it turned out, the preparation day was a challenging hike, but we didn’t need to carry all our stuff with us, so it wasn’t so bad. Our navigation skills were reinforced – pacing and compass skills were just a few of the things that our leaders checked us on– But what made it more challenging was an unexpected foggy spells and rain showers on that day. We realised early on that the area we were in that day would be the area in which we would finish the entire expedition in later that week, which was very reassuring and gave us something to look forward to. We had a lot of carbs for dinner that was mostly pasta based, and played some card games, thinking about the long walk to come.
The following day we set off on our 4 day expedition in sun and a light wind on our back from one of the highest points on the moors, we could see as far as Bodmin moor to the West and into the valleys to the east towards Princetown, the terrain was good going apart from a scramble on a virtually non-existent path, where the map proved essentially useless so we had to rely on our honed compass and bearing skills! We camped at a site called Nun’s Cross, which was a field next to an abandoned farmhouse. There were no facilities at all, and we had to collect cooking and drinking water from a river, that we chlorinated to ensure it was safe. We found it quite spooky, being absolutely in the middle of nowhere. There were no roads nearby (the nearest being a 15 minute walk away), and we couldn’t see any sign of people at all. We were surrounded by sheep and wild ponies, eating our rice and chorizo dinner – which was certainly a bizarre feeling!
Day 2 of our expedition and we made our way to Teignhead campsite. The walking was long, but not so hard until we found ourselves in the middle of a field of grass tufts with no visible track, this was then followed by a challenging hill climb. After this terrain we thankfully arrived at Teignhead, another wild campsite, enclosed in ruins of stone walls. The views were stunning, and we had some group shelter time, after cooking our boil in the bag meals. We collected more water from another river, and got a very well-needed sleep!
The third day, we were in high spirits, knowing we were on our way to the final campsite. We were going from Tor to Tor to Tor, which involved a LOT of climbing up and a lot of going down. But, we saw lots of cows, sheep and dogs, and even some wild campers who chose to camp on top of the exposed Tors!!! Being so high, we could see our final campsite, East Okement farm from about 7km away, which definitely motivated us even more! The sun was shining all day, and apart from some slight navigation misplacement, and having to turn back on ourselves, the walk was as expected. Getting to the Farm in the evening felt amazing because there was a tap, and a toilet, which after two nights wild camping, was a luxury!! We ate cous cous and chorizo for dinner, still in high spirits knowing we were almost done.
The final day wasn’t as easy as the first, as we had been on the moors already for 72 hours, but was made much easier knowing once we got to the minibus we could just sleep and relax back to Surrey. We came across a couple of steep tors and had our lunch by a gorgeous river in the bright sunshine. Seeing the cross on top of the hill, that we had seen on our preparation day was the greatest relief. We were all smiling and had so much energy for the last half an hour of our expedition, basically skipping across the stepping stones. We finally arrived at the car park, and our expedition was over. 75km done in 4 days over Dartmoor!
It was one of the hardest, but also most amazing experiences of our lives, and even looking back on it a month later, it already feels nostalgic, and I almost miss it!
Alice
Hole Hill ESU