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12th September 2023- We are sorry but we are now fully booked until October on all our routes - please contact us for Autumn and 2024 dates

The Two Moors Way

Two Moors Way and Devon Coast to Coast Walking Holidays

Around 100 miles crossing Dartmoor and Exmoor National Parks


Tarr Steps on the Two Moors Way

The Two Moors Way Route Overview

Two Moors Way Walking Holidays -  Dartmoor National Park SectionAcross dramatic twisted Tors lying on moorland carpets of purple heather and yellow gorse, contrasted with timeless green rolling valleys in an unvisited mid Devon.  Have no doubt the Two Moors Way is a national trail of incredible variety, inspiration, and quite simply magnificent beauty for any walker that steps up to the challenge. A perfect weeks walk on a route that links the only two National Parks in Southern England with the West Country’s most unspoilt rural backwaters, and blends this journey faithfully into a fascinating pilgrimage running from coast to coast.

Walking on wild, isolated Dartmoor National Park offers true freedom to roam where you see fit over its open access moorland in one of England’s last areas of sweeping wilderness.  Yet this walk is so much more than heather and hills. Dartmoor has more Neolithic and Prehistoric sites than any other National Park in Europe and between the rocky Tors, a string of standing stones, abandoned Tin mines, lonely crosses and ancient stone clapper bridges line your route along with one of the region’s most important and impressive Bronze Age Village remains at dramatic Grimspound.

On Exmoor National Park in the land of Lorna Doone the Moorland literally tumbles into the sea, where dramatic hanging valleys and gushing gorges break up moorland climbs alive with wild ponies, red deer, buzzards, kites and curlew. Two very different days of walking separate these two moors through the hidden heart of Devon, walking a tunnel of enchanting woodlands, deep river valleys, green lanes and ancient drove roads bursting with wild flowers and wildlife.

Watersmeet on the Two Moors WayYou will find isolated farmsteads, medieval bridges and a string of unspoilt and rarely visited West Country Villages - real places, of thatched cob cottages, pretty square towered churches and traditional pubs with a warm rural welcome. Overnight stays where you will meet with real people leading real rural lives, an experience often impossible to find elsewhere in the cream tea fuelled tourist haunts of coastal South Devon. 

For the walker the sheer variety of terrain on The Two Moors Way is worth every step of the journey and as for its highlights this is the one walk where we hardly ever get the same feedback from our walkers. One may predict the highlight to be the thundering Teign Gorge below fortified Castle Drogo, the ancient Tarr Steps Clapper Bridge alive with kingfishers on its riverside trail to Withypool, the thrill of stalking a herd of Deer at Exe Head or the splash of an otter in the River Dart. Yet it’s just as likely to be that hour chatting about the afternoons walk with the locals in front of a roaring fire in the Black Dog Inn or one of those pleasing days in between the moors wandering through rolling valleys and meadows, leaving a simple peaceful satisfaction within, that is so hard to find in this modern age. Why not walk it and see!

View a 3 minute video of the highlights of the Two Moors Way walking trail

Factors to consider for walking the two moors way

A walker on the Two Moors WayRoute Direction  - You can walk the Two Moors Way in either direction and we can provide luggage transfers to suit, however when there are prevailing winds these are normally from the South West so it’s best to have these behind you. In addition, the descent from Exmoor to the coast makes a superb last day walk so for these reasons we recommend walking the Two Moors Way from Ivybridge (or Plymouth) north to Lynmouth.

Walking the Moorland Sections - The majority of the Two Moors Way is easy to moderate walking grade much less severe in ascents and descents that the rollercoaster South West Coast Path and for that reason higher mileages on this route are the norm. The challenging sections on the Two Moors Way are the open moorland parts.

Thanks in part to Sherlock Holmes and The Hound of the Baskervilles Dartmoor National Park and to a lesser extent, Exmoor National Park, retain a somewhat misleading image as eerie, dangerous and infamous places. Reality for the walker is that even on these sections in general the Two Moors Way route is not a difficult one but the open moorland is high level walking and you will see little or no habitation all day on the more remote sections –

Those walking the route over the moors therefore must be able to navigate easily and confidently with a map and should be able to turn to a compass if the mists do descend.  You should also have enough walking experience to be able to assess conditions and make good judgements in bad weather about the Moorland Sections. If you are not sure of its suitability then call us and chat with one of our staff who has walked the route.

 

 

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