I managed to get out of a hospital appointment in Treliske before midday so I took the opportunity to do a half-day walk from Trelissick. With a remarkably dry spell in November, it looked as though other people had the same idea to take their dog for a walk, the car park was nearly full and everyone seemed to be heading in the same direction towards the gardens. Not being sufficiently interested in gardens, I went the opposite way and headed for the open parkland where Eddie could be let off his lead. Initially he took off like an Exocet missile, without any idea of where he was going, but a short blast on the dog whistle soon had him back at my side. He has become much better socialised and although he can be quite full on to start with, he soon gets the impolite introductions out of the way and settles down, often losing interest in the other dog and getting on with the more important business of reading peemails.
Walking across the parkland in front of the big house we went straight ahead, aiming for the river where I was sure we could pick up a path that followed around righthanded, but soon encountered ‘No Access’ and ‘Private’ signs so had to walk back up the hill before going through another large rolling field dotted with ancient oak trees and picking up what would have been the main driveway out to the road. After studying the map it was apparent that we had to walk a short distance along the fairly busy road, despite finding a track on the map that was now overgrown and inaccessible. At the first junction we turned left for Trevilla and walked downhill to Pill Creek, seeing no traffic other than a tractor. The tide was out so we picked up a footpath and walked alongside the creek where there were 14 swans including three of this year’s juveniles in their dull grey plumage. It was my intention to walk around the point following the shoreline to Loe Beach but I met a man with two spaniels who said that I had just missed the tide and wouldn’t be able to get all the way around. He kindly explained where I needed to go and we walked together back to Feock church, where he had parked his car. The church tower is set away from the church itself and when I was there, being early November, it was draped with hundreds of bright red poppies knitted and crocheted by the ladies of the parish. It was a most impressive display and gave the appearance of poppies pouring out of the tower. An elderly man sweeping up fallen leaves told me that at Christmas the same ladies hang lots of large, overlapping knitted green triangles on the tower and thread strings of fairy lights to make giant Christmas trees. I would have liked to have gone inside the church to look around but decided instead to carry on with my walk or I would be running out of daylight.
Just beyond the church there was an easy to miss footpath sign by the old red telephone box. The path took me across a field in front of houses before coming out onto the road again, which drops down to a stony beach where people were busy laying up boats for the winter. I only found out about Loe Beach last week as my oldest brother had been there to pick up a boat that needed moving.
Being such a dull grey November day I decided not to linger and set off to walk back to Trelissick but once I came down to Pill Creek again I met an old man carrying a length of wood which I offered to carry for him and got into conversation. He was most interesting, having lived around Feock all his life, and I wished that I could have spent longer talking to him but it had already cost me nearly half an hour. By the time I reached Trelissick again the light wasn’t very good as it was fast approaching four o’clock. I have looked at my map and seen that I could have continued off road around to Restronguet Creek before picking up further footpaths, making a circular walk back to Trelissick – another walk for another day.
Erica
