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Letterboxing: a clued-up adventure in Dartmoor

Writer: Anna JordanAnna Jordan

Updated: Apr 8, 2019


This letterboxing adventure is full of peril, mystery and tomfoolery. It is pretty lengthy though, so you might want to grab a caff before we get started.

If you'd just like to crack on and find out how to organise your first letterboxing trip, head to the bottom of the page.

WARNING: for the experienced letterboxers out there, stamp spoilers lie ahead.

Hold on – what’s letterboxing?

Letterboxing is a heady mash-up of orienteering, geocaching, stamp carving and collecting with cryptic crossword-esque clues chucked in.

You decipher clues from compass points and distinctive features around the letterbox. When you find it, you put the letterboxer's stamp in your notebook and put yours in the box's logbook.

If you're keen, you can carve your own stamp out of rubber. It could say something about you or where you're from, or it could just be something random. Some of the designs are brilliant!

The first puzzle for me is getting hold of a clue sheet, especially at the last minute. The Dartmoor Letterboxing Forum has a list of charity walks which contain clues based around an area or theme – perfect for beginners. And the proceeds from the sheets go to charity, of course.

But the snag is that you often can’t get these magic sheets online. It’s a case of requesting a sheet and then snail mailin’ a cheque through in a self-addressed envelope. There’s a comforting secret community feel about it, though it seems a bit archaic.

Luckily, I’m told that a clue sheet is available to buy from the Fox Tor Café in Dartmoor.

Everyone I know is either away or busy this Easter Sunday, so I reckon it’s the perfect time to head to the birthplace of letterboxing for a spot of exploring.


Dartmoor

THE TRIP OF DOOM.

As you can gather, this wasn’t the most successful of outings.

Hours before I was due to leave, my phone stopped charging. My coach tickets are online so I had no choice but to take my laptop with me.

I’m waiting in the queue, so preoccupied explaining to the National Express man in my head why I’m showing my ticket on a big brute of a laptop instead of a slick wee smartphone. He jokes about making the screen bigger. It goes over my head so fast you can hear it whistle.

(Just as an aside: why do overnight transport services put on air conditioning rather than the heating?! BALTIC.)

Through some miracle, my phone starts charging again. It’ll definitely be easier to find Heathcliff on the moors with GPS.

The bus arrives in Plymouth at 5am. The city centre is beautiful, even in the dark: the air that tickles your skin is crisp, scented with sea salt.

Due to my inability to understand bus stop timetables, I spend longer in Plymouth than I intend to, stress eating Easter treats while I try and figure out what I’m doing with my life.

I’m finally on my way, cruising through leg one of two. I step off the bus for the next part of my journey to find out that the service only runs from Monday to Saturday.

It’s at that point that I learn my danger phrase: ‘That’s doable’.

I put the café’s address into Google Maps on my ailing phone which only really has enough mojo to tell me the time.

Sound.

Setting off

It’s a stunner of a day and I’m determined to find at least one letterbox. I remember reading about one in a pub en route so I stumble on in there. The barman at the Burrator Inn is a playful chap with a glint in his eye and a cheeky grin.

He says he has a letterbox out the front, so I thank him and turn around to leave.

“I’ve been living in Dartmoor for 20 years; of course I know what a letterbox is!” he jokes, cracking out an ink pad and a massive stamp.

I'm so sleep deprived.

Tra-la! My first stamp.

Revived by optimism and a feeling that I actually have something to show for my day, I carry on the five-mile route to the café.

The area is a vast and clear expanse, like a lush green countryside desert. My legs tire, but I see houses, and they’re no mirage. I MADE IT!

I head over to the café to pick up a clue sheet and a coffee. The kind man behind the counter gives me another stamp and directions to the first letterbox.

Between him and the barman at the Burrator Inn, I'm starting to get a sense of how integral this little-known hobby is to Dartmoor's history and culture.

The cashier hands me my coffee and looks utterly perplexed when I ask him how to get to Exeter bus station, where I'm leaving from.

Surfing on my own ego, I was so chuffed that I got there that I didn’t put any thought into how I’d get back.

I consult Google Maps on the wall outside. It tells me that even though it’s just gone 3pm and my coach home is at 5:40pm, I’ve already missed it.

After scrapping around with taxi numbers and bus timetables with the lovely ladies at the visitor centre, I plug my phone into my laptop for some extra juice, looking like a proper thief magnet. I book myself on to the last coach from Plymouth at 23:59.

At this point, my eyes cast over my notebook.

I’m normally right there with with you, Amelia, but I’m so embittered by this point that I’ll have to politely disagree.

In other words: ‘On yer plane, hen’.

Getting down with some clues

As I’m here, I decide to walk the extra mile and a half to where the letterboxes are.


Well, riddle me timbers! The first clue makes absolutely no sense to me, with mentions of proximity to rowan trees and oaks. My tree knowledge just doesn’t stand up to the test.

Instead, I hover around some walls, humming ‘The Pretender’ by Foo Fighters. That’s technically true – I found some broken glass and a bag of dog poop, but no letterbox.

With no luck, I decide it’s time to give up and go back to the bus stop, the way I came.

On my travels, I hoped to make a GIF of a squirrel. I didn’t see a squirrel the whole day up until the walk back. Were things starting to look up?

No. It's roadkill, with tyre tracks carved as deeply into it as the stamps in the letterboxes I was supposed to find! Gaaah!

THIS TRIP IS CURSED.

I see a box in the woods and touch it. It's just a box of abandoned clothing. And now I’m probably the lead suspect in a murder enquiry. But y’know, these things happen.

Bella Italia is my heroine in these uncertain times.

The waitress brought out an almighty bread basket which was clearly meant to be shared between two or three people. I absolutely mauled it.

Trying again

After I got home and slept for about four days straight, I thought about my fling with letterboxing.

If I were to part ways with this mysterious mistress, I’d go for the horrifically cliché ‘it’s not you, it’s me’.

And it was – my appalling lack of planning was part of the reason that the trip went so badly. So in fairness to letterboxing, I give it another go.

I found some letterbox locations on Atlas Quest and set off to St Johns Wood in London one evening after work.

Understanding the clues, once again, is a struggle. That’s until I realise that I'm in the wrong graveyard. Beneath a crypt was a loose brick. My heart perks up as I shift it to one side.

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS!

A flick through the book reveals some wonderful prints, including this nod to the witch trials of Salem, Massachusetts.


And then there’s mine.


The spirit of adventure

Amelia creeps back into my head.

Is adventure always worthwhile?

My descent onto Dartmoor did teach me that, sometimes, planning wins over spontaneity (as sad as I am to admit it). I'll take that, and the other lessons that come with it, into consideration in future.

So all in all, I’d say that adventure always is worthwhile, even if it doesn't feel like it at the time.

Cheers, Amelia.

How to plan your first letterboxing trip

Based on my own stroll in the moors, I have some pointers.

Plan as much as you can in advance: work out your routes; decide what trains and buses you're getting (if necessary) and have copies of timetables to hand; get your clue sheet a few days before you leave and get a feel for the area you're in — it could give you a handy head start!


While you're at it, check the weather forecast and the terrain so that you can dress accordingly. I couldn’t have been more glad that I was wearing my walking boots!

Kit-wise, take water, something to eat, a compass and the biggest ink pad you can get your mitts on. The Giant Ink Pad from Hobbycraft is £4 and comes in pink, blue and red.

You can pick up a stamp at the same time, but you can make your own by following Dartmoor Letterboxing's simple guide to creating your own personal rubber stamp.

Though there are no written rules as such, letterboxers ask that you respect the environment. Leave the sites as you found them, don't break anything and if you’re going to create your own letterbox, leave it somewhere where it won't cause damage.

I’d recommend Atlas Quest for beginners. It’s got some useful guides to get you started as well as clues for letterboxes outside Dartmoor.

If you're really into letterboxing, you might be interested in a clue book, but you'll need to have 100 stamps in your collection first.

It has really taken off in North America. Head over to letterboxing.org for boxes near you.

Would you give letterboxing a go? Tell us in the comments!

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About me

. 2019 Gie it Laldy!

Hi, I'm Anna.

In my spare time I like to have a dabble in different things; I've never truly had one passion.

That's why I want to celebrate all of the wonderful activities out there and the boundless enthusiasm of the people who do them.

 

Go and find something that inspires you to gie it laldy! 

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