A Drive through Dartmoor and A Fairy Tail View of the Atlantic

Our next adventure was one born in the imagination and interest of our daughter Sarah...As a young girl she was passionate about all things equestrian.

Dartmoor National Park

Our little Sarah spent hours studying horses.  One of her favorites was a pony found wild in an area of England known as Dartmoor.  As we made our way southwest toward the Cornish coast, we decided to drive through the Dartmoor National Park.

The countryside was spectacular, and we enjoyed the beauty of the winding roads through fields, forests and moor country.

  

To our delight, we encountered wild Dartmoor ponies right off the roadway... 

 Scruffy little things, they were as tame as could be and did not mind my close proximity...

We stopped for lunch in the small village of Tavistock... I could not pass up a walk through the church yard... the spring flowers were lovely...

Before we knew it, we were on the western coast of England.  Our first stop was the mythical birth place and home site of King Arthur, Tintagel Castle.  The Castle ruins currently on the site were built for Richard, the first Earl of Cornwall in the13th century... he built this Castle to connect himself to King Arthur and thus legitimize himself.  This site was considered sacred and a traditional location of Cornish kings.

The castle is perched on the top of an island which you must climb over to... we made the hike with thoughts of the stories of  Arthurian legend and the Knights of the round table swirling through our heads...

The bridge connecting the Island to the main land... 

we climbed thousands of stairs to the top.

This is a place of  Knights and legend...

The climb was worth the view... amazing... windswept... wonderful...

 

My Knight in shining armor :)