Cornwall 3 – 1. Luxulyan

Tags

Agar-Robartes, Carmears, Cornwall, granite, leat, Luxulyan, red admiral, speckled wood, Treffry Viaduct

The last (and indeed only) time I had been in Penwith, the very tip of Cornwall, including Lands End, was way back in 1973. For some years now, I had harboured a desire to go back. I made it as far as north Cornwall in 2013, on a geology field trip, and for some years had been gathering together material on furthest Cornwall. So when, last January, I abandoned all thought of a wildlife holiday on the Continent, I booked a week in a BnB in Penzance. Already availability was low; I think many other retirees had the same thought as I had – grab the first week the schools are back.

On my journey down, the augurs were good. Just minutes from home, as I took Bella to the cattery (Tilly was left well provided for at home, as she is not vaccinated) as I drove through Meare there was a young woman walking along the pavement with a large owl on her arm! I was not quick enough to stop and take a photo, sadly.

Traffic down the M5 was heavy but rarely slow, and I arrived at my planned lunch and walk stop just before midday. One of the many bits of paper I had gathered was about the beautiful and interesting Luxulyan valley, in North Cornwall. As I pulled into the village, I had needed to find just two things: a loo and coffee, preferably in that order.

No difficulty in finding either. For the second, just yards/metres away from where I was able to park my car, was a Memorial Hall,

where a ‘Plant swap and butties’ event going on. (I was later to find out more about Captain Agar-Robartes, a local MP, who had been killed in 1915 while trying to rescue a wounded comrade, during WWI.) There they were very happy to serve me a coffee for £1.

I didn’t stay inside to drink it. The room was small and noisy, and a dozen apparent locals were sitting around, not a mask between them, and one of them was holding forth on political matters in an extremely loud voice. I sat outside on this rather beautiful bench, which took me straight back to my week in Huissen, singing with an international choir in commemoration of the Battle of Arnhem.

Three people passed by in the road, and two of them said hello. Friendly place, Luxulyan.

From my reading, I knew there was a beautiful walk along the valley, and was delighted to find a description of one in a ‘Short walks in Cornwall’ booklet I had just bought.

I set off,

and soon came across this well,

which pleased me for itself, and because it confirmed I had taken the right direction from the church.

The walk soon left the country lanes for footpaths through the woods, alongside leats for much of the time..

In due course I arrived at the Treffry Viaduct, wondering what it (had) carried. I now know that ‘firstly it carried the mine trucks over the valley and secondly it carried the water used to power the water wheel at Carmears. ‘

Overall, I don’t think I have ever said ‘Wow’ so frequently during a walk, not just for the viaduct, but also for the huge blocks of granite and the wonderful views…..

I had said to myself that I would stop to eat my sandwich at the first available place to sit after 1 pm. At 12.58 this came into view, the first bench I had seen (and indeed the last on this walk). I decided not to obsess over two 2 minutes!

The view as I ate.

Whwn I set off again, there were several temptations to wander off either side of the path but I resisted them.

The gap to the left where the 9-metre diameter water wheel had been was unmistakeable. It wound wagons up the incline

From here the water ran to drive it, a tiny trickle today. The Carmears incline was to haul crushed minerals up the slope.

Looking back at the furthest point, (I’ve come from the left and must return on the right) except that the instruction was to continue for a short while down to a bridge over the incline.

This was the turning point of the walk.

During my week in Cornwall I saw many, many butterflies, and perhaps 80 per cent of them were red admirals.

There were several ruined buildings on my route.

But this is the top of the wheel machinery.

Not only were stone sleeper supports visible all along the incline, but also the occasional rail support

and even rail.

But not every butterfly I saw was a Red admiral. Here a Speckled wood.

The walk continues to follow the track, as far as the viaduct.

‘At the end of the viaduct turn left and go up some wooden steps to enter a field.’

And then it all went wrong. I could find no wooden post at which to turn right. But I did find a stile and hoped it was the right one. It was, later confirmed. But I should not have been able to take these next three photos.

When I had what I reckoned from the map was about 20 minutes to go to get back to the church, I realised that something was wrong:  no longer did the terrain fit the description. I tried take a common sense approach, knowing that my car was north, (the sun was out) but it proved impossible. Long story short, it was with mixed feelings that I found myself back at the end of the viaduct, pleased to know exactly where I was, but unsure how not to make the same error again. I had literally gone round in a circle. I climbed the steps again, nervous of how to escape the vicious circle!

I took the stile again, and decided to ignore what I had previously taken to be a junction at which I was to turn right, and – phew – this worked. A much more obvious junction soon appeared, and all went smoothly from then on. I was very pleased to see this waymark, indicating, as I hoped, the church from which I had started off.

Interesting stiles in Cornwall…

The ice cream I bought at the village shop was well-deserved, I thought.

The M and S food hall on the outskirts of Hayle, 50 minutes away, was my next planned stop, and from there it was only 20 minutes or so to my BnB. Or should have been. Traffic was incredibly slow through the town, through which I was forced to take an unexpected diversion, for reasons which will become clear in my next post. I went out for a very short wander on foot around 7.30, but likewise the theme of that is more appropriate to my next post…

Andalucia 8

Tags

Acebuche, Andalucia, Andalusia, Andujar, Charente, Doñana, Durer, granite, Great piece of turf, Guadalquivir, Jandula, Naturetrek, Sierra Morena

From El Rocio to Andújar and beyond, Wednesday to Friday. Taking a rest after our last morning drive at El Rocío, we set off at midday for the three-hour drive, broadly following but sadly not aware of the Guadalquivír river, to our second hotel, the Hotel los Piños, 14 kilometres above Andújar, in the eastern  Sierra Morena.  But first we went backwards a little into the National Park, to have a picnic lunch at a lovely visitor centre, El Acebuche (the ‘wild olive tree’ already noted in El Rocío).  The temperature was rising (from about 25°C in Seville to about 30°C at the end of the week), but as long as one was in the shade, the dry heat was very welcome.  The visitor centre was informative:

National, Natural, Parks etc in Andalucia. Doñana is the orange patch to the west, on the Atlantic, and the Sierra Morena the central and smallest green patch at the north.  The very tip at the south, on the Straits of Gibraltar, is Tarifa, near where our migration-geek Naturetrek guides, Simon and Niki live. Gibraltar itself is the little southward-pointing spur just to the east.

El Rocío is where the dark and light green parts meet up with the yellow, and Acebuche is nearly at the coast to the south south-west of the town.

“Travelling without frontiers”

An unusual sundial.  It works both sides, depending on where the sun is.

The scenery changed as we drove: Our all-day outing the following day showed the dry landscape of the Sierra scattered with boulders (Pictures also snatched from moving vehicle).

Taken from a picnic spot as we had lunch, overlooking the…

reservoir of the Jándula, a tributary of the Guadalquivír

Arty-farty picture taken that day. (Ever since becoming aware of Dürer’s wonderful painting, ‘Great piece of turf (1503)’ I have been very sensible of the beauty of clumps of grass, etc.)

Sitting around looking for wildlife, no 23

Returning to barracks in the late afternoon, a view of distant mountains, not nearly as pretty, sadly, as when we had seen it in the cool mists of the morning

Another a-f picture. I loved the sun coming through the seed-heads.

The following morning, Friday, we got up very early indeed, before breakfast, in quest of our ‘prey’.  It was SOOOO COLD!  But beautiful.  We were very glad to get back to a good breakfast.

Clockwise round the table: Simon (guide-naturalist), Trish, David, Hugh, Stephen, Niki (guide-naturalist, and here waitress), Judy, Penny, Sharon, Margaret (hidden), Jason, and Henry.

Again we took a picnic lunch (Simon and Niki, our Naturetrek guides, did us proud each time!) and our stopping place made me nostalgic for my previous life in France. Where we ate so reminded me of lazy picnics on the banks of the Charente river – though perhaps there were no mountains in the French setting.

Sitting around looking for wildlife, no 34.

Interested in geology, I had been fascinated in these two days to see many extraordinary granite formations as we drove along, but I was able to get a photo of none of them.  This, right by our picnic spot, is a poor representative.  We ended the day where we had watched the dawn arrive hours earlier.  The final three posts will be about the wildlife we saw during those five days in the National and Natural Parks…

 

Dumfriesshire, part 2

Tags

BBC, chaffinch, Dumfries, granite, Hole i' the Wa', John Balliol, Lockerbie, Mabie House Hotel, New Abbey, Nith, rabbit, red sandstone, Robert Burns, St George's Cathedral, Sweetheart Abbey

On Thursday, 23rd July, I was again to be with two people with whom I had been in contact for a while, but had never met.  My late mother’s second cousin and I were have lunch together at New Abbey. On the way, I stopped at Dumfries to explore a little. (Note the sun, it won’t stay for long and it was chilly.)

This is still the top of a Burton shop.

The tiny entrance to this Hole i’ the Wa’ looked so fascinating that I thought I might take a coffee there on my way back down the main street.

Greyfriars Kirk and Robbie Burns

I know it doesn’t do the building any good, but I do like seeing vegetation growing where it’s not meant to.

My eye was caught by these – and other elsewhere in the window – gentlemen!

I soon found myself in an elegant, no doubt former residential, part of Dumfries, now largely occupied by the professions.

Beyond the restaurant, these buildings are the courts and the procurator fiscal’s office.

When I went back to the Hole i’ the Wa’, I was greeted by this along the alleyway:

The inside of the inn was as large as the entrance was small, with a variety of bars and rooms. I was able to tuck myself in a corner with my coffee and observe.

Well refreshed, when going back down the high street intending to return direct to the car park, I was tempted right, sideways and downhill, as it looked to me as if there might be a riverside at the end of that road.  There was indeed, quite a picturesque one with some nice bridges, of which here is one, over the River Nith.

It was raining by the time I got back to the car park.

R. and I had arranged to meet and lunch at the (New) Abbey Cottage Tearoom, next to Sweetheart Abbey, and we were able to dodge the showers just long enough to have a quick look round before eating.  This once Cistercian Abbey was founded by Lady Dervorgilla of Galloway, wife of Lord John Balliol, in 1275.

In the Tearoom, the waitress had some difficulty in getting our order out of us, we were talking so much about who was related to whom, how well had each of us known so-and-so, and general getting-to-know-you conversation, but eventually she got a look in, and we ate, rather slowly as we were talking so much.

We moved on to R. and his wife’s home, deep in the hills, built not in the dark red sandstone of Dumfries and New Abbey, but in the pretty granite of the country we were now in.

I think I could live with such a view

The talking continued, and continued, more on family history, (R. has done a lot of genealogical work on my maternal grandmother’s side), then on R.’s former work as a sound engineer for the BBC, and then on music.  R. is a very competent pianist, and his father was organist at St George’s Cathedral, Southwark (I hadn’t realised there were two cathedrals in Southwark before) and used to compose.  He showed me some songs his father had written, in a beautiful manuscript.  I really wanted to try some of them, but didn’t dare suggest it, limiting myself to just reading a few bars of some of them in my head.  How I wish I’d said something, because, as I learned later, too late, that was just what R. wanted as well.  And I’m not usually one to hold back…

Later in the afternoon, the three of us standing in the kitchen, I saw a red squirrel out in the garden!  Beautiful.  I took my camera, and was planning to sit quietly out there to see what I could snap.  I was outside for just a few minutes, and got this,

then the rain started again.  From inside, I managed to take nothing of real wildlife interest, but this at least shows some of the abundant granite boulders lying naturally in the garden.

As the evening before, the encounter ended with a pleasant meal out at the Mabie House Hotel, conveniently placed for my drive back to Lockerbie. As we left, it was so warm that we nearly drove away without our jackets.

I had just one day of my holiday left, and absolutely nothing planned for it.