Up and Over

Tuesday morning, or more correctly early afternoon, saw me home alone and thinking it would be better to be out in the air than flopping around wasting time before heading off to work.


So I gave myself an extra hour or so and left on my pedestrian commute intending to trog up Maker Lane and enjoy the great outdoors of the Rame Peninsula. Then I remembered that I'd seen some tufted ducks on Millbrook Lake the day before, so changed route and pootled past the lake hoping to get a shot of the winter visitors.


They were there alright. But, in the manner of such things, the little so-and-so's were bobbing about as far from the side of the lake I was on as they could get. So the resulting shots were pretty rubbish. This rather fuzzy affair is the best of the small bunch.

So, I was off route and without a decent duck photo. Ah well, I could get back on route by heading up the Alpines (what a brave soul I am). But I only got a short way up the steep woodside path before spotting a new (to me) sign pointing the way through Clarrick Wood into Pig's Hill Wood and thence to Maker Church.


I changed tack once more and intrepidly set off on a small adventure; believe it or not I've not ever walked through Clarrick Woods in all my time living in Millbrook.

And before long, although after some soggy and muddy plodding, I was in Pig's Hill Wood, climbing gently and getting toward more familiar territory.

From there it is but a skip and a step to Maker Church and the upper reaches of Hooe Lake Valley with a view over Cawsand Bay to Penlee Point.

There was bit of a treat awaiting me as I headed across toward Mount Edgcumbe's landmark folly.

A large group from the Mount Edgcumbe herd of deer (part of one of which formed the last two Christmas dinners at Millbrooker Towers, thank you Dame Sandy of Florrick).

And so, the journey began its closing stages as I passed the stile to nowhere.

Plymouth hove into view.

And there was just one last mini adventure to be had. It's been quite a few years since I climbed the folly. So I did it, just for the hell of it - goodness me but I know how to have a ball.

And so my adventure wound down to close, as I passed through the fern garden. . .

. . .and after a ferry ride and short scoot up through Plymouth, it was time to earn a living. Boo!