Combestone Tor is lying at the southern part of Dartmoor and although it is easily accessible, it was a place I haven’t visited until my friend Lee Frost brought me there together with a small group of likeminded photographers in beginning November. The first three images are all from this visit and are shot early morning towards the north northeast. River Dart runs in the valley but is hidden by the fog dwelling in the valley.
The Tor is at an altitude of 350 metres and the Dart valley is 150 metres below. It doesn’t seem that steep on my photographs, but I have walked down into the valley and walking back I noticed every metre of the altitude climb! The farm you can see is Combestone Farm and further away in the valley is Dartmeet, where the East and West Dart Rivers meet up.
The following images were taken at other visits to Combestone. The first one, when I was out on my “clapper bridge project” trying to photograph clapper bridges and the streams around them – will be published on this website later in January (hopefully). It is captured just before Christmas and later in the morning (the sun is higher), but from a similar position and in the same direction as the first photo. Different days – different images!
The final photo is a sunset, when the sky turned spectacular. The sun has just gone down behind Ter hill and Down Ridge in the southwest and lit up the very special cloud formations that I had seen build up in the afternoon. The hills in the background are more than 100 metres higher altitude, than where I am at Combestone Tor. I have shown this photo in an earlier blog, as it was the first day out with my new Canon R5 camera and I wanted to share some of my first photos.
