Today I’ve had the most lovely day out for my friends birthday! We went to a National Trust property across the other side of Dartmoor, Buckland Abbey, once the home of Sir Francis Drake. I think I will probably create several posts about it because I’ve just put 400 photos onto the PC. As I don’t know where to start with Buckland here are some photos of the journey across the moor. In the one with the smoke we were wondering if someone was swailing – controlled burning of heath to stimulate new growth, and now I’ve just seen on the BBC’s website that a few mile north there is a huge blaze covering six square kilometres. They don’t know how the fire started yet, swailing can be done until the second week of April, but with prior arrangement .The land is desperatle dry, I can’t remember seeing it look quite like it did today, so just the tiniest spark is all it takes, and the concern now is for nesting birds.. There are 100 firefighters at Chat Tor and they are being assisted by local commoners beating, I hope the fire in my photo, south east of there is quickly contained.