Welcome to the Beacon Villages, a community of 4 villages on the edge of the Dartmoor National Park which consists the villages of South Zeal, South Tawton, Sticklepath and Bellstone.
This trail will take you on a walk around all 4 villages and should take around 3 1/2 hours (at a moderate pace) but with some interesting views and buildings along the way could take longer.My suggested route would be to do them in chronological order, either ascending or descending (if you want to get the hill out of the way first). GPS signal maybe a bit iffy so it would be best to map out the route before setting off.
OK here comes a brief health and safety announcement. This trail is intended to be done as a walk, please DO NOT do as a cache and dash as some of the roads are quite narrow. Parking at South Zeal recreation ground and at the time of posting is free. Most of the caches are placed on the roadside so care should be taken at all times especially with young children and dogs (please keep dogs on the lead due to this being mainly a farming community).
All caches are along tarmac roads or footpaths with the exception of "Beacon Villages 6 - The Postmans Path", this is on the bridlepath between South Tawton and Sticklepath and is very uneven and muddy after rainfall, and caches 12 - 15 which take you on a short walk across the edge of the moor, all usual moor trecking precautions should be observed, the first half mile or so can be fairly boggy.
Big Rock
This is the first of four caches that will take you on a short walk (approx 1 1/2 hours) across the moor linking Belstone to South Zeal, as mentioned above the first stretch (about 1/2 mile) is fairly boggy so relevant footwear advised. I wasn't sure what to call this cache several suggestions from my niece and nephew were considered including "Trolls Lair" (as she thought the area looked a bit scary) and "The Cheese Board", because a couple of the rocks look like lumps of cheese, settled on Big Rock for obvious reasons.
All caches are placed within the Geocaching and Dartmoor National Parks guidelines.