On Monday we received word that Eggesford had been seen on the B3227 between Umberleigh and South Molton. So on short notice a small team of us headed up that way to try and keep track of them.
We arrived in the area at around 2:30pm, we quickly found them after bumping into a couple of support vehicles and an equipped quad bike, driven by Terrierman Jake Crabb, with Danny Pearce and Tom Bounsall on the back. If 2 people on an overloaded quad wasn’t bad enough, Eggesford have decided that 3 is now acceptable, another accident waiting to happen.
We soon bumped into the hunt itself, who were on the road by Warkleigh Barton. Alongside Jason Marles and the hounds was only self-identified Farmer, Lloyd Heard, a pretty poor showing really…
Whilst in attendance, Marles hunted the valleys to the North and South of Warkleigh Barton, Marles and Heard were witnessed holding up a copse to the south of Broadmoor, with Crabb and Co soon coming up out of the valley to the road.
The hunt moved on from here eastwards, with the hounds mostly at the feet of Marles’ horse, all the way to the road, they then trudged back to the meet at Hilltown Cross. We pulled over waiting for the quadbike to be packed away and head home, to ensure they couldn’t return to digout any potential marks from the day.
What we didn’t expect was for everyone to get out of their vehicles and hide behind the hound van for the best part of an hour. With the rain and wind they must have had some important reason to do so, what were they trying to hide?
As it got dark they all started to head back to their vehicles, which kind of defeated the point of Crabb and Pearce masking up, since they both walked straight back to their own trucks…
Gallery
