A trip down Blackberry Lane

Posted on August 22, 2007
Filed Under - leisure |

I want to show you some of the countryside and views surrounding where I live. Today I went out blackberrying along a route that I also use for running. First up, this is where I live - in the sand-coloured block of flats on the right, above the beach. It used to be a hotel but was converted to apartments around six years ago.

Attenborrow Court

I head up to the hills above the flats, where there is a footpath leading to the next village, St Columb Minor. The climb is rewarded with a great view of the sea. I also manage to work out how to use the timer on my digital camera and have fun setting the camera up on handy fence posts and scampering into position. What larks! But to find the best blackberries, we must continue inland.

Sally on the hills

I make my way through the picturesque village of St Columb Minor and strike off just past the church, down a bridleway. I’m not sure if it has a name, but I am calling it Blackberry Lane! The path cuts across a valley, so it’s a sharp downhill to the bottom followed by a steep climb up the other side. When I run this, the climb is really hard work!

Blackberry lane

This path is prime blackberry real estate and the blackberries soon start piling up. Many of them are already out, but even more are yet to ripen so there should be plenty for a while. Some of the best blackberries I find are guarded by an enormous spider web complete with enormous spider. He has attached structural silk to key fruit which I can’t pluck without destroying his edifice. So I leave his house alone. I get scratched, stung and prickled in my quest, so I take a break by the stream at the bottom of the valley. Time for some more amatuer photography where the position of the sun makes me look as if I have been kept in a cellar for ten years without sunlight. But with plenty of food, apparently…!

Sally by the stream

When you reach the top of the valley on the far side, you emerge from the confines of the bridleway to find yourself looking straight down the centre of the valley to the sea. Nestling in the valley’s folds there is Porth Beach tourist park. There are a number of caravan parks in the vicinity but they haven’t been particularly noisy this summer – at least to a girl used to city life. And in the summer they provide a bus service to town which is much more frequent than the local one-an-hour service.

Newquay bay

However, this seemingly peaceful valley is once a year turned to madness and mayhem when the infamous Run to the Sun festival descends for the May bank holiday. The green hills are covered with the many hues of the VW camper van and you can’t walk outside your front door without being squirted by a water pistol. It’s basically like having Glastonbury in your back garden. I wasn’t around for this year’s event but if I’m still here next May I’ll bring you some pictures. My running route takes me off to the right, over the fields to Watergate Bay. But I had a full tub of blackberries so I headed home to enjoy them. Mmm, can’t you just smell them?

Blackberries

Stumble it!

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