As mentioned previously, Buster the dog we are caring for usually gets loads of exercise walking beside his owner on her horse most days of the week. But in the few days we have been here, we have enjoyed some great walks with him as well.

The main walk we go on starts through the private woods the people who we are sitting for own. This gate leads us into an area that is filled with large granite boulders that are covered in vivid green lichen.

It is only about 500m through these woods before we reach the property’s boundary and a public road. But walking those 500 metres provides lots of interesting things to explore.

This is an old pump house for example in the photo on the right, and to the right of the shed, about 100m away, is the River (South) Teign which runs through the property.

Like most rivers in this part of England, it starts on the Dartmoor. The River Teign has two branches – the North and the South – and they meet just outside the boundary fence of this property, a hop, step and a jump away at this bridge, called Leigh Bridge, and that is when the river is (simply) called the Teign River.

The Teign River flows for 50km, eventually reaching the English Channel at Teignmouth.

Heading ‘right’ across Leigh Bridge (the direction Mick is going in this photo), and following the road for 2km, you arrive in the village of Chagford. (I will write more about Chagford in another post –  as there is so much to share about this location.) This is the shortest way to get into the town, but it is not the way I drive us there – as we cannot take the shortcut through the woods in the car – of course.

The road is narrow – as I have mentioned before – but the dog is very obedient and I keep him on a lead for most of the way, unless there is a good stretch where I can see if a car is coming. Luckily people seem to drive slowly on these roads.

On our first walk along this road towards Chagford, the dog and I got a little ‘scare’. We could hear some dogs howling, and I knew that the German Pointer was not a fan of other dogs. He looked a bit anxious, and I was too because I was unsure if the dogs were behind a fence. But, we walked on.

This zoomed-in photo only shows part of the kennels we were approaching, but I estimated there was around 20 dogs, mostly hunting dogs, in them. They were very excited to see us both, but thankfully they could do nothing about it.

During our fourth night here, we experienced some light snow. Just enough to make the driveway and paths to the sheds where the animals food is stored quite slippy.

 I took this photo just after 7am, and Buster thought it was time for his breakfast – but I was not convinced, and made him wait until the correct time – 8am.

Around 9.30am, Mick and I had to get the hay to the other animals and check they had water, before we took Buster on his morning walk through the woods. But this morning, Molly the Shetland spotted me and raced down the hill and followed me like a puppy.

She knows I usually have some horse pellets in my pocket for her.

And she was not disappointed. We made about three more stops before we eventually reached the gate into the woods. Molly would have kept coming if we’d let her, and so long as I had some treats left.

As you can see there was not a lot of snow, but it was still crunchy under foot. You can see in this last photo how the snow settled near that pump shed I mentioned earlier.

Mick left his mark!