I visited The Elephant House, one of the cafes in which JK Rowling penned Harry Potter. Sitting in the back and gazing out the window (above), I would easily imagine her vision of Hogwarts creeping to life. However trite, I enjoyed my own writing sessions there, confident in the creative vibe to work its own magic for me.
After only two nights with the delightful company of a kind host, I flew down to London where I was able to reunite with a great many familiar faces, both local and antipodean. Unfortunately, the UK has been doing to my budget what bulls do to china shops. Anyone need to buy a kidney? After seeing a tear-inducing performance from James Earl Jones and Vanessa Redgrave in Driving Miss Daisy, I took a train to Exeter where I connected with a local bus into Dartmoor.
From Moretonhampstead I wandered up toward the high moors and was given a lift all the way to the Bellever backpackers. Before the light faded, I lay down on the medieval bridge that has long since been defeated by floods, contemplating the centuries past when people had walked over those stones.
The next morning I slowly made my way down from the high moors through tracts of forest and along riverside paths. When the sky turned to charcoal and rain fell, I took to the shelter of trees from which flowing lichen hung like the beards of old men.
After I made my way back onto roads, I was picked up by a woman who drove me to Ashburton on the south-east edge of Dartmoor. I went into a cafe for a coffee and heard Fat Freddy's Drop playing (NZ band). Random. I visited the ruined Holy Trinity church in the neighbouring town of Buckfastleigh and stayed the night with some kind couchsurfing hosts.
The next day my progress was slow. I walked and hitch-hiked in steady northward increments, stopping off in the tiny villages that dot the landscape, laced together with paths that have been trod for countless centuries.
I was dropped off in Chagford by a man who proudly told me about his ancestor who went to New Zealand and helped produce the "Waitangi
Declaration that ended the wars with the Maoris". I smiled woodenly, cringing and thinking, "Do you know how many things are wrong with that sentence?" I was next picked up by a woman in whose car was playing Fat Freddy's Drop. Starting to get creepy. She offered me hospitality in a writer's retreat on their farm that I might enjoy some other time.
The next ride was from a novellist who dropped me off near Gidleigh, technically closer to my destination but on back roads rarely frequented by traffic. As the day grew darker and the sun crept lower, I wondered if I would spend my evening trudging frozen along deserted country roads. While that thought was mildly exciting in itself, I was nonetheless relieved when a man picked me up and drove me to Okehampton at the north of Dartmoor. Thanks to low season, I had a lodge in Bracken Tor all to myself for only £19. Talk about value for money!
I am in London now, sitting in Abney Park, an overgrown gothic cemetery (below). Fat squirrels clamber in the trees while another fossicks in the ivy that swarms over the graves next to me. No... wait. It's a rat. Even better. And a crow caws raucously as it flies overhead. I think someone's in heaven...
I am near the end of my trip now and this might be my last post. I suspect I have already reached the end of picturesque places to report. Only time will tell. Soon I will arrive back in Wellington to see how my writing benefits from the creative inspiration of recent weeks. The state of my trilogy:
The Ethereal Hand is in review.
The Wolves of Gravedeep faces editing and polishing.
Rowan Moon is waxing slowly. In the next year I promise to have more than talk to offer.
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