Friday, June 3, 2011

Our Trip to England PART FOUR (The Moors)

Ever since I read Wuthering Heights, I've wanted to visit the moors that Heathcliff walked. When my mom asked me what moors were exactly, I was stumped and just mumbled what I imagined while reading Wuthering Heights--"open" "hilly" "rocky".  In fact, I wasn't really sure. On Wednesday, we decided to take a drive through Dartmoor National Park to see the moors first-hand.


We stopped at a little village of Ashburton for some shopping and then Whitcombe for lunch at this really comfortable restaurant where the girls ran and played in the backyard while we were waiting for our food. It had a running stream and blossoming trees where the blossoms were snowing and blossoms were floating on the water (thanks to my girls). 

The moors were beautiful and now I have the real image--the rocks jutting up through the grass and the open, tree-less rolling hills--to go along with some of my favorite English books. Turns out, I wasn't that off after all. There are wild sheep and wild small ponies and cows (I'm pretty sure they're wild too) that graze all over the moors. We had to stop (or at least slow) several times for sheep on the roads. Although seeing it and being there makes me want to re-read Wuthering Heights.



We stopped back at Powderham Castle again to see the gardens we hadn’t had time to do the day before when they were closing, and then we took the trail to the kid’s play area and pets—including all sorts of animals like chipmunks, lots of chickens and ducks, pigs, goats, ponies and tortoises (not turtles, says Bianca). They had a cute castle fort and a zip line that Bianca wouldn't stop playing on. Even Portia loved the zip line. We stayed there for quite some time and just let the kids play.



2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love the play fort! How cute is that! You are making me want to move to England. :)

thefirewoman said...

The moors are lovely. I guess I had no idea what they were either.