Feeling the need for wildness and the cold, Jell and Pete decided that Dartmoor was the place to be in the middle of November. Well, we never were famed for being sensible!

For the week before the trip the weather forecast oscillated between gales force winds and flat calm and between pouring rain and, well, the usual Dartmoor damp. One consolation as we contemplated a weekend away was that all the forecasts agreed that it would be warm, with 9C predicted overnight at one stage. More of the night-time temperature later!

We drove down from Pete's, leaving at 0715ish, and arrived at South Zeal ready to set off at 1030 or so.

Up onto the moor, onto Cosdon Hill and then along the ridge to Hangingstone Hill, via Hound Tot and Wild Tor. We stopped for a brew on Hangingstone Hill, where we met several Dartmoor Rescue Teams on an exercise. They were all looking, without success it seemed, for two parties of walkers to rescue, and offered to rescue us if we'd be good enough to break a leg.

There was a chilly wind blowing, but it was mainly dry, and we set off west from Hanginsgstone, aiming for Cranmere Pool. After a soggy walk we got there (and met another Rescue Team!), stamped my notebook with the stamp in the letterbox and signed our names in the log. Setting off again towards Great Kneeset, we came across the end of Black Ridge Cut - a path cut down to the bare rock through the peat beds, providing travellers ancient and modern with a route through the mire. As we approached Great Kneeset we heard the thudding grind of the rescue Sea King, and watched it land on the moor next to the tor, the crew getting out to treat and "rescue" the distressed walking party there. We went up to watch, and strangely no-one told us that this was an exercise.

Leaving them to their evacuation we walked further west, before descending the ridge down to Kneeset Foot where we camped for the night. As we dropped down we met an instructor from an ML training group, waiting for two parties of girls. We went on down, and the camped some 100 yards up from us.

Arriving at out campsite at 1530, we put the tent up, had a brew and got the tent ready for sleeping. A supper of couscous, ready cooked rice and sliced salami was soon cooked and despatched and as dusk fell we felt ready to crawl into sleeping bags for the night... and then realised that it was only 1640! Out of desperation to extend the day, we walked up the hill in the rapidly gathering dusk, and then back down to have a chat with the girls and instructors in their campsite.

Even after all these delaying tactics it was only 1730, and pitch black, so we crawled into bed. Believing the weather forecast I had packed my summer sleeping bag (which packs nice and small) which combined with a silk liner I had hoped/expected to be enough for the night. The ice that had formed on the tent after 20 minutes was a bad omen however, and I realised I wasn't going to be warm and toasty all night. Pete and I chatted, played some poker dice and had a whisky, and then snuggled down to sleep. As the (long) night went on, I put on more and more clothes until I was wearing everything I had! (It was at this point that I realised that the usual practice of using your spare clothes as a pillow isn't much good when you don't have any spare clothes!)

It had rained in the night, but as dawn broke there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and I lay half out of the tent making a brew, hoping my boots would thaw - they aren't that waterproof, and they had frozen solid.. The cloud rolled up as we made breakfast, and it drizzled a little as we packed up, but that was the last rain we saw that day until just as we reached the car park to drive home.

We set off at 0845, going upstream a few hundred yards to cross the river, then climbing up to Dinger Tor, and along the ridge to High Willhays where we enjoyed being the highest people in Southern England. We carried on along the ridge to Yes Tor, where we stopped for a brew and a snack, and then headed east across the moor to ford the river at East Okement Farm and then gain the ridge of Higher Tor and Belstone Tor, before dropping down off the edge of the moor at Belstone - a beautiful Dartmoor village, perched on the slopes above the river Taw.

We followed the Taw back round the edge of the moor, to Sticklepath and then South Zeal and the car and home.

A good couple of days which, thanks to the weather, presented no unusual navigation or walking difficulties. It was a good reminder, however, how featureless chunks of the moor can be, and of how easy it can be to get lost when the clag comes down.