Peek Hill and Sharpitor

We had been told that there were marvelous views from the top of Peek Hill but never been there. Today as we wanted just a short walk we thought we would go and see for ourselves.

To reach Peek Hill you have to drive through Dousland and park at the side of the road.  We were able to get into a small area which holds only two or three cars.  The path up Peek Hill goes straight up from here.  If this is full you need to park at the car park at the foot of Sharpitor.  The view from where we stopped the car is spectacular, and we looked forward to seeing how much better it would get as we went higher up.

View across to the River Tamar

There was a clear grassy path leading up to Peek Hill which was marked by stones at the side.  To begin with you cannot see the top of the Hill, although Sharpitor was obvious to the left. After about 10 minutes gradual walk uphill you reach the ridge From there we walked across to the flat granite stones perched on the top of Peek Hill.   The view from the top was magnificent.  Only Sharpitor prevented you having a 360 degree vista  As well as the view we had from the car we could also see down to Burrator reservoir

Burrator Reservoir from Peek Hill

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Brentor

There were lots of Dartmoor ponies grazing on the slopes and they had young foals with them.

  

We walked along the ridge to Sharpitor, which has a lot more granite scree on its slopes.  We scrambled across the stones to reach its summit and have a different view of Burrator.

We decided to walk down from Sharpitor to the car park at its foot, but this was not such a good path as the one we had come up.  It was not such a clearly defined path and there were lots of stones along the way and at times it was very wet with streams and pools to be avoided.  But again it was a very gently slope and we soon came to the pool next to the car park, where more ponies had gathered.

We then walked along parallel to road back to our car.

This had not been a long walk, taking less than an hour, but it was one of the most scenic walks I have done.  It was slightly misty on the afternoon we went and we could still see for miles, it must be even better on a completely clear day.  This is definitely a walk I would recommend to others and I will be doing it again I am sure.