Advice for newbies required

Parents were letterboxers years ago so know a bit about it but have never actually had to go looking for boxes myself ! We have our first stamp from a pub but headed up to Belstone Tor a few weeks ago and found nothing - am trying to stick with the tradition of finding 100 before getting the catalogue so any tips on how to find them would be gratefully received !

Welcome to the site.
There are various ways of looking for boxes, one of which is to do what I used to do and follow people until I worked out what to look for.

I am surprised you didn't find any on Belstone, my last trip out there netted me 15 boxes and that was without clues.
What I would recommend is a trip down to Pork Hill Car Park then walk over to Pew Tor and have a good look around there... before the bracken starts to grow

Nik - KOTM wrote: I am surprised you didn't find any on Belstone, my last trip out there netted me 15 boxes and that was without clues.

I am also surpised you did not find any around Belstone i was there a few weeks ago and found quite a few boxes.

As Nik said once you get an idea of what to look for you will soon starting finding them everywhere. I reckon a good 50% of the boxes I find I stumble across accidently, when looking for other boxes.
Also it may be worth buying a charity walk, this will then give you a good idea of what to look for.

Not sure about Nik's stalking technique though

WHAT??? you went to BELSTONE and you didn't find ANY boxes??? I went there this morning with my eyes blindfolded and my legs tied together and I found 50 boxes in the first 10 minutes!!!!!
Don't be put off by the professionals lol we often go places and find no boxes.

When we find lots of boxes they are always kids boxes (fortunately it is our kids collecting the stamps). However we don't go too far off the beaten track and the kids always want to get to the highest point which doesn't really help. If you are not too fussy about stamp quality and just want to get off the mark then Saddle Tor, Bonehill Rocks and Hound Tor have lots of of boxes, there are quality ones around those areas too no doubt but you will probably come across a Hobbycraft special first!!

There is a recent list of charity walks sold at the meet if you decide to go in that direction - you might have already seen it as it's just a few posts down,

http://www.dartmoorletterboxing.org/for ... php?t=2563

this will probably the direction we will go in at some point once the kids tire of scavenging.
Nik I am soooo going to start stalking you it's only fair, you started it

The stalking technique is something I seldom do anymore, but it sort of helped in the beginning, but could be hard when returning a box to its location.
The funniest incident happened on Black Tor, when someone came up to me saying they couldn't find any boxes that day while not ten feet away was a one day box sat on top of a rock in plain view...
Anyone remember those one day boxes that used to go out once in a while?