Last Friday, my Detective Fiction class took a study trip to Devon. We left bright and early at 7:45 a.m. and boarded the bus to Dartmoor National Park. Dartmoor is a moorland, which means it is a wetland with many hills and low-lying plants. It is an eerie place, with dense fog and high winds. There are hardly any houses in the area because the ground is not sturdy enough to hold a foundation in place. When we got to Dartmoor, we hiked up the biggest hill on the moorland to a pile of huge rocks, called a tor. On our way, we saw ponies wandering about the hills! Once we got to the top, our tutor gave us a dramatic reading of The Hound of the Baskervilles, which is the name of the Sherlock Holmes novel that we read in class. This book took place in Dartmoor, and we felt as though we had been placed right in the middle of the mystery. On our way down the hill, the fog lowered so that we could hardly see in front of us, and the rocks disappeared into the distance.
Then, we went to Torquay, where my favorite author, Agatha Christie, grew up. We ate fish and chips from my tutor's favorite restaurant (although I ordered a veggie burger and chips because I am a vegetarian).
