Back to Bodmin Moor

After a wet week filled with mostly domestic duties, I thought I had better make the most of a sunny Friday morning and go for a walk on the moor. As this was unplanned, (no maps, compasses etc), I thought I had better play it safe and go back to the same place near Minions to start out.

At first it looked like Fate had other ideas. I took the wrong turn in Liskeard, and headed a few miles towards St Ive rather than St Cleer. I drove through Merrymeet. What a lovely name! I parked at a place marked for this purpose, thinking there must be a good walk there, but the break in the hedge showed only a muddy- looking field. I think the parking spot was for a Bed and Breakfast place. Back to the original plan, I thought, not too put out driving along the pretty lanes past old stone buildings and ancient churches. The sun made everything look more charming. Merrymeet! The very name is heartening.

"Be of good cheer, gloomy-looking youth back in Liskeard," I thought as I passed one, "for Merrymeet is just around the corner, and surely a warm welcome is to be found in yon 'Rosecraddock' manor." But he was probably out of work and down to his last foul cigarette.

On I drove, passing a large dead badger on the road. It was about the size of a wombat. Has England got enough badgers, I wondered, to be able to run over one and not worry too much? I gloomily reflected that all I needed to see was a dead water rat, added to the mole the cat brought in a few days ago, to make up a morbid Wind in the Willows bingo. Unless I needed a toad...

Up to Minions, then, and the parking spot near the ring of standing stones. Yep, still there... Interestingly there were a ring of ponies just behind them, no doubt involved in some sort of druidic ritual bred into them after a couple of thousand years near the stones. (Or the farmer had dropped some feed up there. Unlikely, that). I started walking along a broad path, not up to the high tors this time. The path was more puddle than gravel (see picture), but the sun was bright and the moors spread out around me, on the top of Cornwall.


I headed towards a pile of rocks that looked like mining detritus of some sort. I thought about rocks. Ancient ones in a ring. More ancient ones piled on top of each other on the top of a ridge... why? Rocks tumbled and dotted down the slope below the ridge, gradually merging into an old stone wall near a little farm, looking like it was a part of the hills. It certainly wasn't keeping the sheep in: a line of them climbed laboriously down over it one by one, for some unknown purpose. The grass looked just as green on either side.

Behind the rocks I was heading for was a large pool of water, roughly about 25 metres around.
I think it was a flooded mine. You have to be careful of leaving the paths around here, because of old mine openings. I wonder if any sheep or ponies fall down them...

I turned back after this. A string of ponies was picking its way over the moor some way ahead, along a road of their own. Some sheep followed along, probably because they like following things. I tried to take a photo, but the light and distance were wrong.

Back home for a cup of tea! Let it rain in the afternoon!