For three hours or more we messed about and watched the sunlight slowly disappear, laughing in the warmth and enjoying the beauty of the river. Dave managed to prop his cider bottle on the coracle seat and he floated along carelessly on the calm current, taking a swig now and then – the ideal mode of transport. The entire bank seemed almost prehistoric, covered in acid-green ferns, flowers, exposed bark and beautiful rock formations, and it reminded me of the exotic plants in Jurassic Park.
I swam about contentedly, feeling the silt between my toes and the sun on my back. At one point I stood waiting for him to float back to the bank so I could have a turn at sailing the boat, when I looked down into the water and recoiled in horror. Lying on the riverbed was an eel, grey and slippery amid a shoal of tiny fish and, although it moved slowly across the silt, there was something about it that made me shudder. I’d only recently learned about lampreys. These are ancient, jawless, parasitic fish that evolved 200 million years before the dinosaurs, but they have only recently returned to British waters since industrial-pollution levels have been cleared up. They have a large, round mouth full of teeth, which they use to latch onto animals and suck their blood. Although from a conservation point of view I was happy they were back in our ecosystem, even seeing this little eel was enough to make me skittish. It reminded me of the moray eel in the Jolly Roger Bay level of Super Mario 64, which made me scream every time it appeared from the corner of the screen.
This eel was the adult version of the glass eel, which is not a separate species but the term used to describe a young eel, or elver, when it is still in its infancy and the body is almost transparent. As the eel ages, the body grows and solidifies until it looks like this one now did, almost a foot long, silver and butter yellow, with skin so smooth it looked like suede. I wondered how many hundreds of kilometres this one had travelled, how many oceans it had passed through on its way from the Sargasso Sea back to this sunlit section of the Dart, where it now sat quietly on the bottom of the cold river. Eels can grow over a metre long and live for 70 years in the wild and, despite being fish, they are also able to survive out of the water for long periods of time, sometimes crawling through wet grass to reach a new patch of water. We watched it for a while longer until I slipped on a pebble and, disturbed by the cloud of silt, the eel swam away into the deep.
Dave floated back over in the coracle to the far side of the river where he had been watching a grey wagtail hopping around on the rocks, skimming insects off the surface of the water before returning to the rocks to rest. It is an oddly named bird, as its grey back is the least interesting thing about it, giving way instead to the bright yellow belly that flashes like a siren as it glides past. At this time of year, the wagtail would likely be looking after a nest nearby, as they like to nest close to fast-running streams on embankments with plenty of stones and roots where they can find a variety of aquatic invertebrates to sustain themselves, including mayflies, molluscs and beetles.
Attempting to get a closer look, Dave had been using the coracle to its greatest advantage – to creep quietly over without disturbing the wagtail, moving forward with a slow figure-of-eight paddle motion. Unsure if he was a threat or not, the bird remained on the rock, tilting its head from side to side, gazing at the hominoid drifting steadily towards him. At last, with Dave just a metre away on the water, the bird left the rock and disappeared into the evening, leaving the insects for the local Daubenton’s bats that are perfectly adapted to skim them off the surface of the water.
The sun had now vanished behind the trees, and we decided we’d spent enough time splashing about on this section of the river. It was time for our twilight journey downstream. The coracle was a small boat but we had discovered it could hold both of us so long as we put a lot of thought into balancing and spreading our weight evenly. The bottom was also deep enough that it could carry the few possessions we had taken with us and, after testing it out back home, we found it difficult to capsize. Full of optimism, we both climbed in, waved farewell to the grassy common and started our voyage downriver.
In a moment the darkening sky disappeared, as the coracle carried us away from the clearing and into a tunnel of twisted trees forming an arch over the river and blocking out the evening light. We passed clouds of flies hovering over the surface of the calm water, and the sound of gentle trickling echoed around the trees so that everything around us seemed full of life and movement, glittering, breathing and flowing.
Even in the coldest of winters, when the surface of the water becomes patchy with ice and frost, it is our rivers that keep moving, the veins and arteries of a landscape that weave through the earth and bring life to stagnant spaces. In spring the rivers thaw and rain falls, and water is carried down from the hills to the sea, bringing fresh oxygen and minerals to the microscopic creatures that sustain our ecosystems. I remember as a child going on pond-dipping sessions in our local nature reserve, sifting through the riverbed to find the dragonfly nymphs and great diving beetles lurking at the bottom, squirming angrily when they were brought to the surface to be held in pudgy infant hands before being released back to the watery depths. Now, here we were in Dartmoor on a midsummer night, revelling in the vitality of the River Dart, carrying ourselves along on it, watching the birds and insects that fed on its nutrients.
We soon observed that the river was not as calm as we thought and so, to avoid an inevitable capsize, I climbed out and swam alongside while Dave carried on paddling. Seconds later, we realised three things. Firstly, the river was far more turbulent than we’d assumed from the tranquillity of the common; after turning a corner and gazing down at the water ahead of us, we spotted the first set of rapids, and the second set after that. Secondly, as it hadn’t rained properly in weeks, the river levels were so low that we were floating in just 30cm of water interspersed with massive, slippery rocks; when I tried to half-swim, half-stumble down the river alongside the boat, I was beaten by the current and forced to crawl along on my hands and knees like a feeble sea monster. Thirdly, and most interestingly, we had now sailed so far past the common and into the trees that, with the combined strength of the river and weight of the coracle, there was no way we’d be able to pull the boat out of the river and carry it back. After heaving the coracle onto a lump of earth sticking out of the bank, I waited while Dave climbed out of the river and ran back to the van to dump our valuables, and then watched as he waded back across the water, re-embarked the boat and started the long float down the river while I swam behind.
Within seconds I lost a flip-flop. I slipped on a rock, fell onto my side and watched the green slice of rubber float away in the evening light. Meanwhile, we had reached the start of the first set of rapids and, with nothing to do except make our way down, Dave pushed himself forwards and started swirling down the river in a most melodramatic manner. He hit a rock immediately, which sent him spinning backwards into another one, screaming and laughing in bewilderment, praying he would make it out with the coracle intact. I followed after him in the water, which had become slightly deeper and easier to swim in, but just as we reached the end of the rapids, Dave tipped over and fell into the water while I, scrambling to keep on my feet, scraped my legs across a jagged rock and managed to jump onto another earth ledge in the bank.
I watched as Dave floated away, clinging to the coracle, closely followed by my missing flip-flop, which had become dislodged from a branch by all the commotion. I caught my breath and looked down to see a line of blood dribbling out of a gash on my knee, and as I stood trying to work out how to climb back in and swim down to Dave and the coracle, I put my hand on the branch hanging above me and accidentally shook out five or six white moths. They fluttered down and landed on my leg, which, no matter how many hours of summer sunshine it had been exposed to, still shone as white as in midwinter. I had always embraced my pale skin, but even I was insulted by the idea that six moths had mistaken my leg for the moon.
It isn’t a myth that moths are attracted to bright lights li
ke the moon but, although this behaviour has been observed, lepidopterists still aren’t sure why. One theory suggests that, as some types of moth are known to migrate, they use the night sky as a navigational tool. Since they would never expect to actually reach the moon while doing this, when they accidentally bump into a lamp or television screen, they become confused and disorientated. Another theory suggests that moths use moonlight as an escape mechanism; if they are disturbed while resting in a bush, their instinct directs them to the moon as this is most likely to be in an upward direction away from danger, rather than down into darkness.
Like bats – and many nocturnal creatures – moths are another species subject to more than their fair share of negative opinion. The fear of moths, known as mottephobia, often comes from the idea that moths nibble holes in our clothes or disturb us by bashing into light fittings until they flutter to the ground in a cloud of dust. Yet moths belong to the same order of insects as butterflies and, of the 2,500 species of moth in the UK, only two can damage clothes. Contrary to popular belief, not all moths are nocturnal, and many of them are as beautifully patterned as butterflies. They are also invaluable pollinators in our ecosystems, helping to keep our honeysuckle, bramble, white campion, thistle and wild-carrot plants thriving.
For these reasons I didn’t shake away the moths immediately, but watched them crawl about on my leg before gently poking each one with a finger until they flew away. I looked up, and Dave was waiting for me at the end of the rapids, together with a surprisingly undamaged coracle. I climbed back into the river and stumbled down towards him, and together we continued downstream until we reached another patch of turbulent water.
This time I watched from the shore, where the beech tree roots were pushed deep into the riverbank and I could walk barefoot along the earth. Dave braved the rapids alone, and after another episode of chaotic swirling and crashing into rocks, he finally came to a further quiet stretch of water. I slipped back into the river and paddled over to him, although the water was now deep enough that I could almost swim. Ahead, the final set of rapids was laid out in front of us, a choppy, rock-filled slope that poured down into a beautiful pool with a smooth granite bank that we could use to finally carry the coracle back out and return to land.
The rapids appeared to be brief but treacherous. After a quick pep talk we decided that, while they were too dangerous to swim through, they might possibly be safe enough to sail down together if we paid close attention to our balance. No more laughter – just sensible sailing. We climbed onto a large rock to re-embark, and after several minutes of splashing and sliding around on the algae, we somehow managed to fit both of us in and regain our balance. The water was smooth here, and we focused on the entrance to the rapids, which would only last for 3 or 4 metres before we were safely back in calm waters. At last, exhausted and using all the concentration we had left, we sailed between two huge rocks and headed down into the rapids.
To use an ancient boat like our coracle can be an amazing way to connect with the past, to explore our waterways and feel like a master of the river while you sail along on a vessel that was designed thousands of years ago. It can feel majestic, empowering, sublime, like a Viking marauder or a Celtic warrior, sailing out into the unknown with nothing but your survival instinct for company.
Alternatively, you can sink.
We managed to stay afloat for two seconds. With a loud splitting sound, the coracle snagged on a rock and spun like a tortoise on its back, so that we had barely sailed half a metre before, tipped off balance, we both fell backwards into the water and became fully submerged. Dave scrambled out so that he was sitting back on the riverbed, but after trying to cling to the coracle and pull us both back to safety, he could do nothing but release it and call to me to swim down through the rest of the rapids. The problem was that I was paralysed with laughter and so incapable of moving that, instead of removing myself from the boat, I remained sitting on the bench with no option but to feel the boat sinking lower and lower into the water until it was fully submerged and only my head was poking out. I had become one with the coracle, and we were so heavy that we weren’t even moving any more, caught in a nook on the riverbed while the rapids washed past and Dave sat behind me in, quite literally, floods of laughter. We both sat there, useless, breathless and wet, for at least another 20 seconds before I managed to climb out, pull the coracle out of the water and follow it down the rocks into the pool.
We were exhausted. Not only had we traversed three rapids, but my stomach muscles were solid from laughing and it was now almost totally dark. It took every ounce of strength we had left to heave the boat onto the bank and swim after the three empty glass bottles that had fallen out and were now floating quickly down into the next stretch of the river. Amazingly, the coracle was unscathed; the clever lattice structure had acted like suspension as we bashed into every rock available. There was only one victim in our adventure: a towel had fallen out of the boat when we sunk and it was now lost to the depths of the riverbed, where it remains with the eels to this day.
With the coracle pulled onto the bank, we sat by the side of the river, grazed, bleeding, bruised and happy, staring at the stars that had started to emerge from the sky. It was dark now, and we were thankful we’d managed to finish our sailing before the light was entirely lost. I could hear insects hovering around my wet skin, the first of those nocturnal beasts that usually go undetected until their bites come out in itchy red lumps a day later. Dave saw a water vole running along the bank where the trees grew close to the water. We examined my leg, and found the river had washed away most of the blood so that only a thin line trickled down from the wound, diluted by the water droplets that still clung to my skin.
We sat and listened to the roar of the rapids, the gloop of the calmer water lapping against the bank. For us it had been an hour of fun and adventure, but the river – so much bigger than us, and unresponsive to our laughter and bleeding wounds – focused only on moving, flowing on and on until the water reached the sea. It was the lifeblood of the landscape, and we sat on the shore nearby until the droplets cooled on our skin, before wandering back to the camper van with the coracle dangling between our arms like a hammock between two trees.
That night, we fell asleep listening to the last birds singing in the darkness, the sound of the Dart flowing through the forest. With the windows open we could hear nothing but the river – ceaseless, endlessly bringing life, water, micronutrients to the Devon landscape. Nature can be brutal, beautiful or inspiring, but more than anything else it is reliable: always rolling on in the backdrop of our busy lives; always there to immerse ourselves in, to play in or be uplifted by; always there to remind us of our insignificance on earth but also of the joy of being part of something greater than ourselves.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Poet Stone
It hadn’t rained for weeks. Outside, the grass had turned ashen and yellow, the only slivers of green being the feathery fronds of yarrow leaves that had somehow stayed hydrated. Every day, the temperature soared into the late twenties and, while it had been glorious to enjoy such a long, hot summer, at night the heat seeped in through the window and I lay awake past midnight, desperate to hear the sweet sound of rain on the glass.
The alarm went off at two o’clock in the morning. It was a Sunday in mid-July, and I climbed out of bed in the dark, wandered into the kitchen, clicked the hob alight and waited for the kettle to whistle. I could hear Dave moving around in bed, trying desperately to wake up after a few short hours of sleep. I made a cafetière of coffee and poured it into a flask, then stumbled back to the bedroom and turned the lamp on to its lowest setting, the gentlest way of establishing we were definitely not going back to sleep. Dave was still horizontal, so I tapped him on the forehead and moved over to the open window to check the outside temperature was still as mild as Port Salut, before pulling on my leggings and a T-shirt, and tapping Dave on the forehead again.
Ten minutes later, we were shuttin
g the door of the flat and tiptoeing out into the night air. There was no breeze but it was deliciously cool and fragrant. I could smell the honeysuckle at the end of the road, although most of the other hedgerow flowers had withered in the heat. With the flask of coffee in my rucksack, we wandered out of our road and into the town centre. The stars were out in all their shining clarity as we moved past the pubs and bars that had locked their doors just hours earlier, past the blacksmith and the silent train station, past Tesco Express and out to the edge of town – towards the dark, looming wilderness of the Hangers.
The Ashford Hangers, to give the place its full name, is an area of woodland to the north of my hometown. The word ‘hanger’ comes from the Old English ‘hangra’, meaning a wooded slope, but to the locals this area is also known as Little Switzerland due to its mesmerising views over the South Downs landscape. Most of the trees that grow there are beech, so that to walk beneath the canopy on a summer’s day is like walking in water, the sunlight dancing through the leaves and reflecting on the earth below, glancing off your face and shoulders, a sylvan wonderland of light and shadow. It is one of my favourite places on earth to explore, to watch the seasons change and the colours shift, to smell wild garlic on the wind in spring, and in autumn to spot hidden yew berries glowing crimson against their foliage.
Dark Skies Page 21