Dartmoor National Park

Dartmoor National Park represents the ultimate British inland landscape. For two months we lived in the quaint little stone cottage Squirrel’s Drey, in Bridestowe, on the northern fringes of the moor. Not far from the wild coasts of the North Atlantic, we find a vastness and openness that is unrivalled. There are no boundaries within this colossal National Park of 954 km².

Every spot here is accessible. For me, as a horse lover, the most special thing about the British National Parks are the countless semi-wild ponies that live here, free and on their own. In 1950, there were said to be 300,000 in the whole of Dartmoor. Today the number has been reduced to 1300. And yet you can still meet them everywhere, and roam the endless expanse with one another. Next to the tiny, colorful Hill-Ponys, the most famous of their kind are the Dartmoor Ponies. As a fellow horse lady, I have known Dartmoor since I was a small child, just because of one of them.

My first pony, medium-sized, jet-black and cheeky-naughty, was a Dartmoor Pony. His name was Nuri, and he was probably shipped to mainland Europe via the usual dealers, after the young stallions were caught and auctioned off each year, before being bought up cheaply by my former riding instructor. Nuris desire for freedom was unshakeable. He was constantly bolting, throwing me off, running away and resisting the hard reins and cramped stables we shamingly kept him in. If I had seen back then what kind of habitat he came from, in what infinity he could move completely independently in his herd and live the life of a horse as Mother Earth intended for him, I would have shed many tears.

Thanks to the wonderful landscapes and all their wild horses, I was able to develop a feeling for how wrong it is to lock a horse in a box, treat it like a car and deprive it of all its freedom. Only live with animals if you can understand and fulfil their needs. A horse is no different from a dog, from a mouse, from a bird, from a human, from you.

If you are unable to feel because the urban madness with all its industrial filth and capitalist superficiality has numbed you down, then go to a landscape like this for a few weeks and just be still. Because as long as you’re breathing, you’re not dead. You’re just in the wrong place.