A Local Ramble 'Round Liskeard

It has been a very cold week. Walking on the freezing high moors did not appeal to me in the last few days, so I found a Liskeard local walk on the internet, based on catching the train and walking from the station. It promised a walk 'of diverse terrain and historic interest', and so it proved. It was so interesting that I took Jack on the same trek today, as he had most of the day off because of parent/ teacher interviews taking place. (Better than teaching all day, and THEN having interviews, I mused. All right for some!)

Rather than starting at the station, we started at the parking lot that was along the route anyway. We walked along a Liskeard street for a little way before turning up a lane that had 8 foot walls, topped by a hedge. It was dark! It was all uphill, and ended in a stile leading into a field.

(Interestingly, the children had had no concept of stiles before coming here. They just thought they were some sort of gate. This walk had five of them. Jack is pictured at the bottom, sitting on a particularly charming one overhung with bushes.)

We walked through three fields, which had sheep and lambs in them. The last was an extremely steep hill, which we had to walk down in zig zags. I think the hills account for a lot of the 'diverse terrain' around here. Here I am down the bottom of the hill, where two rather nice tall trees marked a gate. There are not a lot of big trees around, which is why I took a picture.

Across a little stream, then uphill past a Georgian house, looking rather stark in the landscape. (See picture). The last stile took us into a winding lane, past old farmhouses and fields with more sheep and some very new lambs. All the sheep seem to have their tails intact. Maybe they don't get daggy sheep here. ( I think 'dag' is a very Australian term! I wonder what the English call people with no fashion sense, who are a bit foolish? )

We passed some old lime kilns, "remnants of a time when the Liskeard to Looe canal served this early industrial zone", apparently. The stream was rushing, but pretty narrow. Surely a canal needs to be bigger? Near the railway aquaduct loomed some equally high old structures, very tall and imposing, maybe from an ancient bridge. Jack was very impressed. Impossible to photograph them... Then a very long uphill bit, past more stone buildings and farms, some looking very old indeed. Pretty, but very cold. The puddles were frozen, even at midday. Our faces ached, although we were otherwise dressed very warmly. Wayne said it was -6 degrees when he rode his bike to school. His fingers got very cold, even in gloves!

Anyway, we eventually got to the top of the hill, and walked through the town until we reached our car. We felt we deserved our lunch.