Day 4 - St Eval to Jamaica Inn

Day 4. For the first few days of our adventure, we are sleeping at John's house near St Ives: this is great in many ways but does involve an increasinly long transit each evening and morning. Having finished at the St Eval wind farm on Tuesday night, Lindsey drove us back the 40-odd miles at 8am on Wed morning. It was a nice spring morning, with broken cloud and a light breeze from the SW - great weather for walking. I was sorry to see my wife of 11 months drive off as we will only meet up a couple of times between now and June! Why do we do these things?
We started southwards past the wind farm and it was interesting to hear just how much noise the turbines produce as they turn - it is a major source of objection during planning. It didn't sound at all loud to me, and I do love the idea of the wind lighting houses and powering machinery rather than the filthy carbon-based fuels we are so addicted to. We were walking away from the sea now, and won't see it again until near the end. The hedge rows and road verges were bejewelled with primroses, celandines and daffodils; flowers that will stay wth us for some days to come. There was a short, frightening, stretch o f A road, then we were on the Saints Way route for a bit, dodging mud and puddles and gradually descending from the heights of St Eval. We encountered yet another obliterated footpath at Pawton Manor Farm, which seemed prosperous & very well run and had to walk across a huge seeded field and use careful navigation to find the route. All totally unnecessary as there was a perfectly good route available just needing signposts.
After that we followed a long lane 3 miles down through the fields and woods to Wadebridge where we immediately found a cafe serving excellent coffee and rested. The weather was really gorgeous as we walked down to the River Camel, crossing it to Egloshayle. Everything looked sparkling and lovely looking along the river valley winding through the reeds and meadows. The route turned off the road onto a delightful footpath through woodland beside the River Arrun. The ground was carpeted in celandines, primroses, wood anenomes and early bluebells. We pushed on and reached St Tudy at 2.40 - we hurried in the hope of finding the pub still open, which it was, so this was becoming a charmed day. It is a pretty village where apparently William Bligh (mutiny On The Bounty) was born and the first blood transfusions were carried out,
We continued towards Churchtown on paths and found ourselves walking steeply up a cascading stream to be rewarded by a great panorama at the top, back to our starting point. We were soon climbing up onto Bodmin Moor and the fields and hedges were replaced by open fells and the ground colour changed from green to beige and brown. We had another rest on a stile before climbing into the centre of the Moor and found ourselves walking through swathes of tussock grass, which slowed us up. Our progress slowed considerably and it took us nearly 2 hours to do the last 3 miles through bogs, tussocks and over fences and walls. Strangely, the last kilometre was really difficult again, and I still don't know how John managed to get through the worst bog with dry feet - I didnt! So we were really glad to reach Jamaica Inn at 7.15pm and be picked up by Yolanda.
No pictures on this post as I am now using the netbook computer that I'm CARRYING on this walk, and it hasn't got all my software. Im working on it.