Confessions of a new letterboxer

A brief description on how you were bitten by the letterbox bug

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Wolf at the gate
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Joined: Fri Oct 10, 2008 6:18 pm
Location: Weston-super-Mare

Confessions of a new letterboxer

Post by Wolf at the gate »

Evening all

just joined the forum after peeking in every now and then. Thought my first post should be about how I got the bug.

I first became aware of letterboxes when doing my Duke of Edinburgh expeditions in the late 1980's. Didn't think much more of it because the whole D of E experience left me with a very soggy and generally miserable picture of Dartmoor.

In my capacity as a Boys Brigade officer, I've been bringing kids to the BB Broadleas Field Centre at Haytor for a few years. Fast forward to a couple of years ago, we decided to have a go a letterboxing with the kids. With help from the warden, we were duly pointed in the general direction of Saddle Tor. Don't know if it was luck, or whether the combined efforts of 2 dozen kids scouring the landscape had anything to do with it, but we found 3 dozen or so stamps. Some of which I've subsequently determined are 'kids' stamps (according to some of the posts on here) but others were more refined works of art, including a 'Dizzy Series' stamp.

Well, I was hooked. Over the next couple of days, further areas in and around Haytor were scoured. Some more successfully than others it has to be said but at the end of the long weekend, I had 51 'stamps' in a book.

We returned this year to Haytor and I managed to find a few more on Black Hill (one of which was another 'Dizzy Series' - are there a few of these then?) and towards Holwell Tor. Hound Tor was less successful. It's quite ironic that having walked over areas around Haytor dozens of times, I'm now looking at every crack in the ground to find more. I've even a few on Buckland Beacon this Wednesday having taken a detour en route home from Plymouth. It's funny how after a relatively short time, you look at a cluster of rocks and think - something's funny about that - I wonder if...

So assuming all stamps count, I'm up to 79 and from what I can see and need another 21 before I can become a member of the 100 Stamp club.

Don't know when I'll make it back to Dartmoor but judging by the numbers of boxes out there people are quoting, I shouldn't have too long to wait before I get to the 100 mark.

I'd obviously be keen for any pointers, but I imagine the box per sq km ratio is pretty even across the moor by now.
Cheers

Andrew
aka Wolf at the gate
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