Sorry to hear your sad news Paul. Best wishes & condolences to Sam & yourself.
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Know your pain only too well … have blubbed like a baby over loosing a much loved feline pal yet not shed a tear at relatives passing. Best wishes to Sam and yourself.
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Same thing innit
The Tavy spa. You doing baptisms?
Not without bevvy
This is a first time in 2 years that I’ve repeated a walk but when the weather’s fine and the vegetation is at its lushest then this picturesque little route is as good as any.
We set out from Bere Alston station. It’s a peculiar spot on a Y shaped junction. The line comes up to here from Plymouth & the tail of the Y once went on to Tavistock then up country via Okehampton to Exeter & onto the main network. Beeching put paid to that line in the 60’s so now the trains reach Bere Alston via one arm of the Y, stop then set off for Calstock & Gunnislake via the other arm crossing the Tamar into Cornwall via the mighty Calstock viaduct.
Bere Alston station
The Y
Looking North up the valley across the hamlet of Tuckermarsh
Our walk takes us down into the valley through woodland filled with flowering wild garlic.
Down by the river we come to Tuckermarsh Quay, a row of maybe 5 one time Miners cottages, now very well kept with nice gardens down to the water.
Following the levee on the Devon side we come to Calstock across the water in Cornwall.
Calstock was once a busy quayside used to ship out ore & arsenic mined in the hill behind. Now it’s a quite funky village with some fairly esoteric inhabitants. Dawn French has just sold her Fowey house & moved here.
I always like to see Ferry farm on the Devon side. There used to be a ferry service across the river here.
Difficult to imagine that opposite bank being such a busy port at one time.
Another beautiful spot & former hotel. Not now sadly.
We followed the river as it turned south & had lunch opposite Cotehele quay,
The path then climbs up away from the river. Someone having a good burn on the other bank,
In the centre of the river there are 3 kayakers coming up. I’ve done that trip & must do it again this summer. From the middle of the river you might be in France or Germany.
This seems new to me. I haven’t noticed it before this year.
Fields planted with strips of what looks like clingfilm over the crop the early shoots of which are bursting through the film. I presume this is biodegradable because it’s a lot of plastic going into the land if not.
Another nice outing on the Bere peninsula. That said, the first walk I’ve tried post Covid & I was properly knackered by the end of it.
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The frost covers are wound off a big drum and then if undamaged wound back-on when it’s time to grow-on; thin polyester fleece ones are used a lot round here to start valuable early crops. They will still shed microfibres. Can’t imagine biodegradeable would stand the weather long enough to be useful, but then again Swatch are now making watches out of castor oil…
Love these writeups BTW 
LOL, they are making watches out of polyurethane, the very cheapest versions of which are made using castor oil as the polyol component.
The worst job I ever had (or a pretty good contender) was picking Gaudeloupe melons in the South of France.
They put down sheets of plastic like that over the seeds.
The plants grew through the sheets.
When it came time to harvest, the first job was picking the fruit which was back breaking and harder than the vendage. Once the fruit was picked the plants withered and died, the second job was to pull them up through the plastic.
The last job was getting all the plastic out of the ground. Two young lads went ahead lifting it up to get the earth off it ,and me and another guy were on a trailer pulled behind a tractor pulling the plastic into the trailer. It was very hot, the plastic stank, we were just wearing shorts and everytime we got to the bottom of the field we were among a load of horse flies. Luckily they seemed to like the other guy more than me and he had about 8 bites on his back which was pretty gross.
This was in 1994 and I don’t think any of the plastic was biodegradable,
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Cantaloupe, no ?
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Yes, thats the fish!
I have never bought one since 
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Looks like a lovely walk
Calstock has a strange feel,I bought a nait 1 many years ago. As I was sitting there listening to it whilst he made tea,I noticed 4 or 5 hardened dog turds just left on the floor.
Moral of the story,always look out for dog shit if you’re buying 2nd hand naim
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It’s a properly strange place. I have old friends who live there, from way way back, and for some reason I can’t properly explain, I’ve never been to visit them. I’ll get around to it eventually. I think the place has a magic, but it’s also a bit weird.
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There is (for a small place) a fairly thriving artistic side and two decent music venues. Aspects of it remind me of Totnes. I wouldn’t mind living there although I’d find the trip to Lidl/Morrisons a bit of a fag. The village shop, such as it was, closed although I guess you could have stuff delivered. You can also get the train into Plymouth & then on up country if you didn’t want to drive.
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I recently got the train all the way up from Plymouth to Gunnislake, for the first time. It was such a nice experience. Calstock station is particularly picturesque.
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I see that old steam engine pump house nearby, the one that featured on grand designs, is up for sale. Liked that build, the couple seemed nice and took a lot of care with it. Hope all worked out ok for them.
If my numbers come up tonight, I’m in
Looks nice albeit £££
We often walk to the derelict Okel Tor mine there which has a lot of interesting remains and arsenic spoil heaps which are safe to be near but on which no vegetation grows.
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That’s nice, a different one and shed load more cash.