Customer Rating: 
Summary: Good ideas, bad directions...
Comment: I have explored Dartmoor using this book, and although the walks suggested are great there are a couple of issues that OS should take note of:
When saying 'turn left at the gate near the brook' you actually mean ' turn right at the gate or you will walk into a live firing zone after 15-20 minutes and this is really dangerous.' I think it is a subtle, but important thing to get right! I encountered this many times in the book on many walks and now I use the book as a guide and use a map instead because the directions are very often plain wrong!
Also, a couple of the walks are described as: 'suitable for small children and dogs'. Me and 3 of my mates (All in their twenties, two of which are very fit, and I was in training for a 10k!!) did one of these walks and I can tell you that after 5 hours over HARD country we were exhausted!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Bring a compass and large scale OS map!
Comment: Mr Brooks, who has written this guide, provides some great inspiration for walks across Dartmoor and some of the walks are well described but I have a few problems with it...Firstly, when he decribes walks as 'energetic' and 'suitable for children' read: extremely strenuous. No chance that any child under the age of 14 will complete the walk, let alone find it suitable. We learned to take his decriptions of how difficult a walk was with a huge pinch of salt. In contrast the Corwall Walks book describes some walks as 'strenuous...only for the fit' which is utter nonsense for some of the walks described, as they were extremely easy.
Secondly, his pathfinding decriptions are useless and if the book is used alone you will get hopelessly lost. In some instances his directions are simply wrong. When checked against an OS map and consulting locals, some of his directions actually send you in the wrong direction! As an example, he describes one start point as 'the old A38 junction with Zeal.' Great, but what's it called now?!! None of the locals knew what he was on about and we ended up devising our own start and end points. He also decribes a turning at Gator Green as a 'right turn at Gator Green' - it's actually a left!
Finally, there is sometimes a frustrating lack of historical detail when you are passing some outstanding monuments in Dartmoor.
Take this book with you, all of the walks he decribes are fantastic and the book should be taken as an inspiration, and a loose guide about where to start, but one should bring a good OS map, a compass and use the book as a guide.
