by Boreades » 9:55 pm
Wrenching the thread rudely back to the original topic (Keeping your feet dry).
While peering at OS maps of Devon and the locations of Dartmoor's motley collection of stone circles, some childhood memories of yomping across Dartmoor came back to me. Most of them involved wet feet. It was blooming difficult to walk across Dartmoor and keep your feet dry. There are very few pathways that help you do that. Like the Greater Ridgeway, the ancient tracks have to do a lot of wandering around to stay on the highest ridges and driest ground. It doesn't help that the River Exe goes almost all the way to the north coast.
For a traveller starting (say) somewhere in Somerset, to avoid crossing lots of water anywhere you'd have to walk a fair way across North Devon, as far as South Molton, before turning sharp left and heading south towards Chulmleigh, North Tawton and Okehampton.
It's suddenly dawned on me that this driest ridgeway route goes through a lot of the "Druid" places. That is, the Drews, Nemetons, Nymets, Nymphs, Nempnett and Nemetostatio.