The first half we visited the Bodmin Moor - a bleak and desolate place, bringing to mind hounds, torn lovers, and hard prisons: an interesting mixture if ever there was one! We took a number of "B" roads and "C", which really do live up (down) to their rating - small, single-laned, winding, hedge-row lined, and beautiful in their own right; it seemed a fitting entry to the moors areas.
First stop was Trethevy Quoit; this well-preserved and impressive Neolithic 'dolmen' burial chamber stands 2.7
metres (8.9 ft) high, with five standing stones, surmounted by a huge capstone. It is truly impressive, and one can only stand in awe and wonder at the people who constructed such monuments, and how they achieved the feat.
The stones are around a metre tall each, and the circles vary in diameter from 33 to 42 metres.
However, it was still interesting to see the castle set on a large natural mound, dominating the surrounding
landscape, constructed soon after the Norman Conquest.
One of the upsides of travelling in the off-season is the distinct lack of tourist hordes; one of the downsides is the potential for some interesting places to be closed.
We first visited the nearby St Stephens church, which was built in the 15th century, where the weather was momentarily fine. Later, we spent time at a small park at the base of the Royal Albert rail bridge, which, opened by Prince Albert in 1859. The bridge was designed and built by the formidable engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel - his last construction, the bridge was completed in the year of his death. At the base on the Saltash side, there is a life-sized bronze statue of Brunel - he really was quite short, which helps to explain why he always wore a very tall top hat.
An English mechanical and civil engineer, Brunel built dockyards, the Great Western Railway, a series of steamships including the first propeller-driven transatlantic steamship and numerous important bridges and
tunnels; his designs revolutionised public transport and modern engineering. Though Brunel's projects were not always successful, they often contained innovative solutions to long-standing engineering problems.
At the same spot, there is The Boatman inn - dating to 1595!
Interestingly, this are was also where the D-Day landing forces departed from; it really would have been a bustling hive of activity; once can only imagine the nervous trepidation felt be the men loading onto the boats for the trip across the Channel and into hell.