Happy Holiday Memories

These pics were taken on the last holiday I had with George. He hated having his photo taken and would never pose or smile. Sometimes I would resort to taking the back view. We stayed at St Austell and this one was taken at its little port of Charlestown. I've written about it before here.

Another day we took the clay trail from St Austell to Wheal Martyn Clay Museum which, by the way, is well worth the visit. We had walked from St Austell more than 2 miles at this point because we hadn't found it easy to find where the trail started.

We were almost at the museum here and found this strange sculpture a little further on. I posted about the clay trails and Wheal Martyn on 2012 as well.

Back at our cottage George had to repair to the dog friendly smoking area outside and made friends with the resident dog.

Photographs bring back so many lovely memories.

Garden Sculpture

Looking through my photos for some inspiration for this post, I came across this piece of garden sculpture. I captured it on my digicam at the Wheal Martyn clay museum near St Austell on our 2012 holiday. I'd like to see what happens to it in heavy rain.

Wheal Martyn China Clay Museum and Country Park

Somehow I managed to lose a few blogging days last week. It’s been a bit tricky trying to meet writing deadlines that are earlier this month than usual because everyone, me included, wants to take time off for Christmas. Anyway, I have a small window of time today, so I thought I’d tell you about our visit to Wheal Martyn as promised.

The final day of our Cornish holiday seems in the dim and distant past now. Actually it was only the end of October, and just looking at our photos takes me right back to it. It was the first day that we woke up to rain, but it was our only chance to see the open air clay museum exhibits, so we went anyway. And once we were there, the rain lessened and finally ceased.

In any case, we started with the indoor displays that told the story of the workers when this was a working clay mine, and of the lives of the local community. And we read about some of the characters connected with the mine over the years, all of which I have to admit has gone out of my mind right now.

Jade was very well behaved in there, but glad to emerge into the open air at the far end. Then we were following a historic trail through the former china clay works, and the first thing we saw was an enormous waterwheel. At 35 feet high it is the largest working water wheel in Cornwall.

 From there we entered a yard with some ancient vehicles and railway carriages that showed how the end product was transported away from the works. 

Here we found more shelter from the rain and more indoor exhibits to wander around, before heading upstairs to where the clay was dried on a tiled floor heated by hot air from furnaces in the blacksmith’s workshop below. When it was dry, the clay was packed into barrels ready for transportation.

After this we followed a roundabout route passing another water wheel, and noting various methods of moving water around to and from the settling tanks and sand drags.

 Jade was not too sure about entering the flat rod tunnel, through which the rods from the massive water wheel below pushed the power used in the pit. 

But she did follow us as we bent down to walk through it on our way to the pithead viewpoint where we could see more modern methods of extracting the clay taking place far below us.

On the way back we passed this quaint seat waiting for tired ramblers. 

We also took in a nature trail that pleased Jade no end. Then she was tired enough to rest in the car while we polished off another Cornish pasty lunch.

On the Clay Trail

The area around our Cornish holiday home in St Austell is where much of the county's china clay has been mined. Most of the clay works have closed down, but there is a network of trails that were originally used to transport the clay from the mines. In 2005 the first of them opened for use by walkers, cyclists and horse riders and more have been developed since.

We took one of them that goes from the town of St Austell and runs parallel to the road going north towards Bodmin. It's a very easy route once you find the start. The local map didn't help, and we must have walked an extra mile trying to find it. We asked several locals who sent us round in circles until we finally found someone who knew what he was talking about.

Almost immediately we met a rather belligerent dog, who scared Jade witless. His owner got him under control and apologised, saying he was a rescue and he wasn't sure about his early history. He made us think how lucky we are to have our own rescue dog with a really sweet temperament, who is eager to make friends with everyone we meet.

So we walked on along the clay trail high above the road and found ourselves almost on a level with the great viaduct that carries the trains over it.

Soon we came to some old works buildings partially overgrown; we found it fascinating to imagine them when they were busy in their heyday. In the next photo, Jade was scrutinising them as we approached.

We passed other dog walkers who had stopped to chat with a cyclist coming from the opposite direction We were to meet and chat with him on our return journey, when he was taking his shopping home further up the valley.

Our destination was Wheal Martyn Clay Museum, some two miles from the start of the trail. It is on the far side of the road, and we were directed towards it at a junction. Here the trail divided and our section took us over the road on a footbridge.

If we had continued we would eventually have arrived at the Eden Project, but we were warned that it was quite an arduous trek with steep inclines and too far for us oldies to walk. I'd been to the Eden project before and we didn't go again this time because of having Jade with us

However, it was only another half mile to Wheal Martyn where dogs are allowed and encouraged, and we could recharge our batteries with a genuine Cornish pasty lunch before hiking back. At Ruddlemoor village, close to the museum, the old chins clay railway siding had been turned into the village green with welcome seats for weary walkers.

These larger than life china clay figures welcomed us at the museum entrance a few hundred yards further on.

We ate our lunch at on of the tables in the entrance hall specifically placed just outside the cafe for people with dogs. Then we retraced our steps along the trail to St Austell. We'd decided to return by car so we'd have plenty of energy for the country park that surrounded the outdoor exhibits. It was a few days before we were able to do that and I plan to post about that soon.

I hope you've enjoyed travelling the clay trail with me. If so, please let me know via a comment.