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devonshire's Diary

Recent diary entries

Greenway / Dittisham

Posted by devonshire on 23 August 2009 in English.

Took a long walk yesterday out to Agatha Christie's holiday home at Greenway and did some surveying in the grounds there and also filled in some missing detail on the other side of the River Dart in and around Dittisham. There's a very quaint passenger ferry over the river where you have to ring a big bell to attract the attention of the ancient ferryman.

Location: Kingswear, South Hams, Devon, Devon and Torbay, England, United Kingdom

Avon Dam Reservoir

Posted by devonshire on 2 July 2009 in English.

Enjoyed a good long walk yesterday taking in some Dartmoor lanes and paths to the west of Buckfastleigh, basically a big circuit around the Avon Dam Reservoir. Started off on the Abbot's Way near Combe and followed that to the north of the reservoir until it joins up with the Two Moors Way. Also mapped in some old tin workings, some standing stones and crosses and the old tramway path from Western White Barrow down to Shipley Bridge.

Absolutely loads of stuff needs mapping on Dartmoor so if anyone is at a loose end this Summer give it a go.

Location: South Brent, Didworthy, South Hams, Devon, Devon and Torbay, England, United Kingdom

Sunshine...making the most of it

Posted by devonshire on 1 June 2009 in English.

Took advantage of the good weather at the weekend to walk the first section of the John Musgrave Heritage Trail from Maidencombe to Kingskerswell. A nice days walk the start of which can easily be reached by bus from Torquay. Lovely views from Great Hill both to the north towards the River Teign and south over Torbay.

Once I have added these sections to the route relation then the 35 miles of John Musgrave will be complete. Also added a small section of the Torbay-Totnes Trail through Cockington to the route relation.

Some of the lanes to the north of Torquay and around Coffinswell look to have been traced in rather poorly so need to make a mental note to survey these in the near future.

Location: Maidencombe, Torbay, Devon and Torbay, England, TQ1 4SU, United Kingdom

Torquay sort of complete

Posted by devonshire on 22 May 2009 in English.

Out yesterday and surveyed the missing streets in the Plainmoor, Barton, Watcombe and Hele areas of Torquay. Also re-surveyed a few streets in St. Marychurch that didn't seem quite right and added some detail to the Willows shopping centre area.

Torquay is now largely complete at the street level with POI's for tourist attractions, etc. although no doubt there will be the odd thing missing.

I'm planning on adding basic landuse tagging as I have done for Paignton but I'll probably leave adding POI's for the next guy.

not going to plan

Posted by devonshire on 26 March 2009 in English.

I had been planning to map in the Watcombe area of Torquay today but it was too wet and windy for the bike so instead I took the bus to Totnes and walked in the missing sections of the John Musgrave Heritage Trail between Totnes and Cockington.

Most of this section of the route is also shared with the Torbay Totnes Trail (known as 3T) so I created a route relation for that as well although I'll have to check where that route goes after Marldon as I'm not too sure.

Location: Totnes, South Hams, Devon, Devon and Torbay, England, United Kingdom

John Musgrave Heritage Trail

Posted by devonshire on 22 March 2009 in English.

Made a start today on creating a route relation for the John Musgrave Heritage Trail which is a 35 mile walking trail starting to the north of Torbay and winding through the area before ending up in Brixham.

I've walked most of the roads and paths in the last few months. There are currently a few missing bits. The first section from Maidencombe to Kingskerswell, a small section of footpath near Berry Pomeroy Castle and another small section near Greenways all of which I hope to get to in the next few weeks.

While it's not quite as dramatic as the SW Coast Path, the trail covers a lot of local heritage sites, is very well signposted and is easy to split into sections. Ideal for anyone who fances a good walk in South Devon.

More Green Laning

Posted by devonshire on 8 March 2009 in English.

Took a bit of time yesterday to cycle and map in some more of the green lanes and bridleways between Marldon and Ipplepen. In theory nice cycling territory but most of the tracks are currently either too cut-up from horses or too rough to really enjoy so spent a lot of time pushing the bike.

Went out this morning with the CTC we didn't go too far as the weather wasn't that great. Only mapped in a couple of new roads from this ride but I also noticed that the A379 between Torquay and Shaldon had somehow got screwed up. It looks as if someone had mistakenly simplified it. Anyway fixed it now.

walking and biking

Posted by devonshire on 1 March 2009 in English.

Took a walk yesterday to the west of Marldon and mapped in a load of footpaths and green lanes. Still quite a few more to do. Only problem really were the idiots on motorcross bikes who seem to think the lanes are their private race tracks.

Went out on a CTC ride today out to Buckfastleigh and beyond. Only added one small section of lane but plenty of re-alignment and joining of unconnected ways which I assume were traced from NPE. Dartmouth still needs some love although I find it very hard to get a reliable GPS signal in the town what with the vertical hills surrounding it.

Last couple of weeks

Posted by devonshire on 17 February 2009 in English.

Going to make an effort to make a few more diary entries as I've been a bit lacking upto now.

Took a nice walk last week from Dartmouth upto Totnes. Very muddy paths at this time of the year but still a really nice route to follow. Quite a few footpaths between Dartmouth and Dittisham still need to be mapped so plenty of scope for more exercise.

Also had a nice ride out with the local CTC group on Sunday. Didn't manage to cover much new ground but added in a couple of lanes around Hound Tor and also added the "Giants Chair" near Natsworthy. This may have to be dismantled soon unless planning permission is granted. I hope it gets granted as it sits very well in what is a very beautiful location.

progress

Posted by devonshire on 27 June 2008 in English.

With the better weather I managed to get out a couple of times this week and have now completed Paignton to a reasonable level. Could really use some decent aerial imagery though to trace in some awkward areas of woodland but apart from that it's not too bad.

I'm planning to move on to Brixham next which is currently ~25% mapped and time allowing hopefully get that done in the next couple of months.

It would be really nice to attract some more mappers in South Devon as there is still a huge amount to be done.

walk

Posted by devonshire on 20 February 2008 in English.

Took a nice walk yesterday down the coastal path linking Paignton Harbour, Goodrington and Broadsands beaches and managed to map in most of the various side paths and tracks down to the different bays and beaches along the way. This linked in very well with some recent work done by "I Like Cats" on the Broadsands to Brixham section of the path.

My main bug bear is that the coastline doesn't seem to be very accurate and with lots of cliffs and rocky inlets I'm not really going to be able to improve it very much.

Also managed to extend the steam railway line as far as Churston. Probably going to have to wait for the railway to re-open after their Winter break before the remainder of the line to Kingswear can be mapped in.

Just Getting Started

Posted by devonshire on 18 February 2008 in English.

I've just started mapping the Torbay area in South Devon which previously was extremely sparse lacking even the main A roads.

I have an old Etrex Legend and have been using that on a bike mount to combine some exercise with collecting map data. I'm a Linux user and have been using gpsbabel together with a shell script from this site to pull the data from the Etrex which seems to be working great. So far I've mapped in most of the main roads and am then going to work out from where I live in Paignton.

Last week I bought a Holux M-1200 bluetooth GPS receiver which I hope to use with my Windows Mobile PDA (Acer N300). I've spent the last week loading various bits of PDA software trying to find the right one for me. The N300 has a VGA resolution screen which looks great but a lot of the software doesn't work properly with it.

Currently TrekBuddy looks good so I'll be trying that out over the next few weeks.

Any mapping help much appreciated.