Saturday 22nd June:  Weather: 11°C to 16°C: Overcast, cool, sunny patches, no rain

Dobwalls to Jamaica Inn:  17.2k Circuit from Jamaica Inn:  Ascent 539m, Descent 539m

Time:  9.00am to 4.00pm: Total time 7hrs: Walk time: 6hrs Plus 1 x 45min and 1 x 15min stop: 

Accommodation: Jamaica Inn Bolventor

Highlights were doing the Tour of the Tors on Bodmin Moor - Codda, Showery, Brown Willy and Tolborough, on a beautiful day with no rain. 

I’m awake at 5.30am, showered and lightly packed my backpack for a day hike around Bodmin Moor over and around the many tors (a rock pile on a small hill or mound). Breakfast is at 7.15am and a lavish buffet of meusli, fruit, yoghurt, croissants, toast and jam.  Then came an order for the du Maurier English Breakfast (minus the baked beans and black pudding) which I had asked to please put in a takeaway box and they kindly obliged bringing bacon, egg, sausage, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes  and a hash brown wrapped in alfoil inside a takeaway box.  

Back to my cosy room for a wifi chat to the kids back in Oz, Ian in Croatia and John in Newquay. I leave Jamaica Inn at 9am, walking down the old main road, through the underpass below the busy A30 which streaks across Bodmin Moor, and head towards Codda Farm.  Then up a laneway which leads to a farm gate, and follow my thin blue line on my phone across the grass/clumpy moors, eventually climbing over Codda Tor.  My circuit, downloaded from All Trails, then takes me over the High Moor, while looking down on the River Fowey which is just a trickle of water, and across to Leskernick Hill where there are supposed to be remnants of stone buildings from ancient settlements.  

Another scary incident with cows and bulls on the hill giving me the eyeball, with one young bull making moves towards me as I scurried to the closed farm gate straddling another muddy pooey puddle.  There’s no picnic tables on the moors, just acres of grassy clumps and gorse, but at 11am I spy a largish rock to shelter from the cool breeze and have a coffee and biscuit, just a short 15 minute stop.  Then on again turning West across marshy ground and steadily climb 385m up Showery Tor where I see my first walkers on their way to Brown Willy.  There’s a group of three older ladies who regularly come to Bodmin Moor, sitting having a cut lunch. 

This is a very popular walking area, most having started at the end of Roughtor Road near Camelford, with lots of tracks between Brown Willy, Showery Tor and Rough Tor.  Descending Showery Tor, across a small bridge at the bottom, I see many day walkers walking up and down Brown Willy.  I steadily climb to the top of Brown Willy via a well graded zig zag path. At 420m it’s the highest point in Cornwall, so I stop for a croissant to admire the view and spend 45 minutes checking out other possible routes to Camelford for tomorrow, as today I’ve just done tomorrows walk around the Tors. 

Getting down the other side of Brown Willy was a bit more difficult and quite steep.  It then joined a well defined path heading towards Tolborough Tor, where I met Owen, an older gentleman, who saw me carrying a map and phone and asked me for the way back to Jamaica Inn.  I’m the one supposed to be asking the locals about which way to go!

I’m back at Jamaica Inn at 4.00pm, and have a shower and wash a few clothes then walk to the bar to have a 1/2 pint of Guinness while writing my diary.  Back to the room for my delicious left over breakfast and watch the Euro soccer match between Belgium and Poland.  Bed at 10pm and i’ve already decided that tomorrow I’ll go to Bodmin to the start of the Camel trail to walk to Camelford.  Only problem is it’s Sunday tomorrow and no buses so I’ll have to take a taxi.