One weekend: two walks

One weekend; two walks over the border in Devon. The first walk was a partial repeat of one we did last week and the other was a new one for us on the edge of the Devon Great Consols mining area.

The first walk was linear, utilising both cars as a shuttle. We started in the car park of the Methodist Chapel in Sydenham Damerel and walked back to the Scrubtor car park. It was just under three miles and was necessary to try and find a thermal top we thought we'd dropped the week before. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

From the car park, looking across to Bodmin Moor. If you know what you are looking at, you can pick out Caradon Hill and Sharpitor. The tower of the church in Sydenham Damerel is just visible on the left.

A male Orange Tip butterfly, quite common at this time of year. I don't think the Celandine it's perched on is one of its food plants.

Almost at the end of the walk, with Kit Hill in the distance. At this point, we were probably 5 or so miles from home.

Just a granite post with its drill markings. When we had got this far, we had not retrieved the thermal top and we had written it off. 

Our second walk of the weekend was a circular one based on the Scrubtor car park we've used a few times recently. This time we took the Wheal Maria Trail that took us onto part of the Devon Great Consols site and around Blanchdown Wood. As the profile shows, it was a fairly strenuous 4 miles. And, guess what? The thermal top turned up in a rucksack that we'd forgotten we'd used the previous week. Smiles all around.

What used to be coppiced deciduous woodland. It needs a little TLC if it's ever to function that way again.

Buzzards are a common sight and I like the way the edges of the feathers are fringed with halo of light.

And another shot of the same bird. I wonder what it's like to be able to fly...as free as a bird.

The spoil heaps at Wheal Maria. Originally a copper mine, for many years it was the largest producer of arsenic in the world. The heaps were the result of much processing further up the slope.

My walking companions for this one.

Looking across to the spoil heaps of Wheal Josiah. I won't go into these sites in any detail as we really need to go back and have a good potter around. We haven't been up here for years. Perhaps we'll go up one evening to see if we can hear the nightjars that are rumoured to reside in the woods.

There is more detail in the photograph than there might appear at first glance, At the bottom can be seen the River Tamar and, in the middle, some buildings associated with the Gunnislake Clitters mine. Another site we really should revisit.

A Peacock butterfly. Beautiful to look at and, if I was a potential predator, I think those threatening eye-patterns would put me off attempting a meal. Its Latin name, Aglais io, is as delightful as its appearance.