Luxulyan Valley Walk

I almost always come home a little wiser from our walking days; there's always something to learn. One lesson I took from last Sunday's expedition was never to rely on the driver knowing where we are going, even if he 'has' got SatNav! I'd quite deliberately decided that it wasn't necessary for me to look up the details of where the meet was - the person who'd kindly offered me a lift had decided he'd rely on my local knowledge and hadn't bothered to check the exact destination to programme into his machine. As a result we actually went past where we should have stopped and spent some time wandering around the village of Luxulyan trying to find the Treffry Viaduct, which was a mile or so back down the road. We'd been so busy concentrating on whether to turn right or left at the bottom of the hill (Ms Garmin was silent on the subject) that we hadn't even noticed the carpark!

I'm not all that enamoured of the SatNav, anyway. On Sunday it took us to the village, yes, but along the very narrowest of lanes with grass and 'cornish hedges' ( high vegetation covered rock walls) either side. There are wider, more travelled, signposted lanes to choose from. Later, when directing us to a nearby village for lunch, the SatNav chose a lane so narrow that there wasn't quite room for a toddler on a pony on a leading rein to squeeze past the wing mirrors of our stationary procession of three cars, and a man in a hi-vis jacket and a stetson leapt up the 'hedge' rather than risk us driving past! What was wrong, I asked myself, in going up the hill to Luxulyan and then taking the signposted lane to Lanlivery - single track it may have been, but at least it had passing places.

But I digress. We went for a walk. The fog was thick and the air was icy in Saltash, but at Treffry Viaduct the sun was shining and the sky was blue and it was almost warm enough to take my gloves off! Luxulyan Valley follows the river Par deeply and steeply down to the coast. There were quarries there and tramways to take the granite and the clay out. Quite a lot of work has been done there on improving paths, clearing leats and making some of the industrial remains safe, making it a pleasant place for a walk even in midwinter. One's boots got muddy, of course, but the mud was china clay white, which is much superior to the usual brown stuff... The Friends of Luxulyan Valley have a website at www.luxulyanvalley.co.uk with photographs and a history lesson which I wish I'd looked at before we went.

We were six people and four dogs on Sunday. At one stage the conversation turned to wondering how many dogs made a pack and whether our motley group of collies-and-a-spaniel would count. Almost immediately afterwards our path was crossed by a 'real' dog pack - seven identical golden retrievers bouncing around in a friendly manner, accompanied by four or five assorted humans.

We followed one tramway down from the viaduct on the left side of the valley, starting high above the river and the railway line, descending steeply past cataracts, water wheels and mysterious remains of buildings, to meet another tramway which took us back up alongside the boulder strewn white water rapids they call the river Par to our starting point, in nice time to repair to the Crown at Lanlivery for an excellent and very welcome Sunday lunch.

Wrens and Robins, Sparrows and Snow

So it's winter. A winter rather more severe than has been usual of late. It's been a bit late getting to us here in Saltash. There was dry snow on dry roads yesterday morning which didn't cause too much difficulty so I went into Liskeard to the resource centre as usual, but by 12 it was snowing again - big, wet, flakes - so I made an executive decision to close early and go home. By the time I got home the snow had turned to rain and disappeared altogether. Nice afternoon, just not quite nice enough to dry everything up before it all froze as soon as darkness fell. And then it snowed. The dog and I went out for a last midnight walk on a thin crunchy layer of 'proper' winteriness, owls hooting in the distance, crisply peaceful, pleasantly cold and still.

By morning there must have been almost an inch of snow. However, from shortly before dawn until slightly too late to go to work or school there were blizzard conditions and the world came to a halt. By the time I took the dog down to the creek (10ish) it was starting to melt and again was almost gone by the time everything froze at dusk. Apart from walking up and down the coombe twice I've not been out at all; I would have gone to aquacise tonight, but the leisure centre had also made an executive decision to cancel all classes, so I couldn't even do that.

One of the bright sides of this weather is that it's giving me more birds to watch. A robin has recently created a 'territory' which encompasses my garden, the birches on the grass by the car park, and (I believe) one garden on the other side. I've seen and heard him several times, singing that 'keep away all you inferior birds' song, and he was singing his heart out from a birch branch at 8 this morning when I looked out of the kitchen window. Then he came down to the feeders for the first time. There was a certain amount of exploration and hesitation before he settled on fat balls for breakfast. Ten minutes later the sparrows started wandering over from the escallonia over by the community room where they roost, and were quite viciously driven away from the 'robin' food. Or at least when they came one at a time. By lunchtime they were all sharing quite happily with only the usual sparrow squabbles.

I am now certain that at least one wren has taken up residence in the rare red jasmine, which is, let's face it, the only thing around with proper cover. It's an amazing bush, as high as the fence, and spreading out like a small tree. In milder winters it will flower all through, but even with this icy weather it's hardly lost a leaf. If anything startles the birds on the feeders, a couple of dozen of them can disappear instantly into its bulk. And every day now for more than a week I've seen a wren hopping out for a stroll along the fence rail and a dip down to the garden. Today I watched one come out, hop down behind the pond, then I saw it come out on to the fence from the top of the jasmine again! So maybe there's more than one. I do hope so... Normally I feed the sparrows and that's it, but today I have also seen bluetits, chaffinches, starlings, blackbirds, great tits and longtailed tits and a thrush all in my patch. There was at one time a line of 24 blackheaded gulls all facing into the wind and snow on the ridge of Hugo's roof opposite (two actually had black heads) with a lone herring gull behind them.

It's now (10.30pm) freezing hard again but the sky is clear. I shall shortly go out for a slide. Thank goodness for sensible hiking boots and spiky sticks!

New Year Walk - Camel Trail

A nice long walk on New Year's Day is getting to be a bit of a tradition, but I can't remember ever having better weather for it. Last night, New Year's Eve, was a full moon in a clear sky and the first morning of the new decade dawned clear and cold. Serious car windscreen defrosting was required - there was even ice on the inside, something I've never had before - even at 10 o'clock when I was getting ready to leave. And lots of layers of clothes, of course. There had been talk of a packed lunch, but at 9am an executive decision was taken that it was probably too cold for a picnic.

Wadebridge to Padstow along the Camel Trail - former railway now cycle track - is five and a half miles, flat but not boring. On the way there the tide was out, and we saw lots of different birds. We met a man who was properly watching the birdlife with a telescope on a tripod. When we expressed an interest he let us have a look - I have never seen an egret in so much detail. There were curlews, lapwings, oystercatchers, gulls of all descriptions, egrets and herons, sandpipers, greenshanks, and many smaller waders I was unable to identify with the naked eye and my incomplete knowledge. The trail itself was much busier than I expected, thanks to the good weather. All three collies are pretty well cycle track trained now, but the new cocker spaniel hadn't quite got the hang of stopping and waiting for the bikes to start with. By the end of the day he was fine, though.

Padstow was manic, with queues outside all the pubs, cafes and restaurants. We really should have taken a packed lunch, but in the end we got fish and chips (very nice) and ate them sitting on a bench on the quay in the sunshine, with dunlins pretending to big sparrows and nicking what crumbs they could. Not to mention dogs pretending to be gannets...

New Year's Day is a traditional 'Darkie Day' in Padstow, when the locals have always blacked their faces, put tinsel round their hats and made music through the town. I'd heard that it had been banned for political correctness, but apparently not. Or not quite. The repertoire now seems to consist of instrumental versions of 'Scotland the Brave' and 'My Grandfather's Clock' rather than the more controversial traditional songs. And I overheard a lady with a north country accent telling her friends that the black faces 'were something to do with the miners'. No, love, it's tin we mine (or used to) round here, not coal.

Then it was that long haul back to Wadebridge through the increasingly cooler afternoon. The tide was rushing in and many of the waders had moved along a bit, flocking here and there on a mudspit or the shore. Having been so pleased to spot a couple of individual lapwings earlier, I was really happy to see a big flock of them flying round before presumably settling down for the night. As we got nearly back to Wadebridge Ty did finally manage to sneak off for one quick swim and was quite unhappy that I wouldn't let him stay longer. The truth was, however, that on leaving Padstow for the return trip I had detected a certain unhappiness in my feet, and it got worse as we went along. I didn't dare stop for too long, for fear I'd be unable to carry on...

We got back to Wadebridge just as the sun was setting, 4.30ish. It had been a beautiful day and a wonderful way to start this new year, but I must confess that I was quite glad to stop. By the time I got home after an hour's driving my feet did not want to put themselves down, and when I took my boots off I found out why - my socks had worn completely through. They were only cheap kiddies' socks from the pound shop with pictures of huggy bears or something on, and I've probably been using them a couple of years, so I deserved to suffer. New socks tomorrow!