Luxulyan Valley Mining Heritage

We've just had a wonderful two days walking and geocaching in the beautiful Luxulyan Valley, near St Austell which is just 6 miles from where we live.

Our walk started along this gorgeous woodland walk. It had a lovely natural design that blended into the natural perfectly. It wound up the hill to a path across an aqua viaduct. 






As we crossed the viaduct we could see the water flowing across below us through the gaps in between the rock slabs. These lay above the aquaduct and lined the floor of the tramway that sat above the aquaduct.







We took the long way round to find three geocaches on the far bank. Otherwise known as not being able to find the right path straight away and having to go back to a previously passed branching path. 


We soon found ourselves in farmland, crossing fields of cows. This unusual rock formation was just sat in the middle of one of the fields.



Back across the viaduct we explored some of the paths through the valley. Our main target was the Cornwall's Mining Heritage -Luxulyan Valley geocache GC116DV at http://www.geocaching.com. If you want more heritage information I suggest you take a look at the cache page as the owner has given a good amount of background information about the site.


One of the locations involved a climb up a bank and down some old and steep steps. It was only that I really wanted to take some photos so badly that made me climb there.

There were a few ruined buildings near by. As usual I think we visited each and everyone...












Sean was rushing around exploring everything...

Slowing down only when we wanted to take photos...










We were a little more sedate... 

After visiting so much of the valley we decided to call it a day and finish the earthcache tomorrow as it was already nearly 8pm. On the drive home a barn owl flew down and caught some prey right in the verge of the road as we went past. It was the highlight of the day. It was actually the second owl we've seen in four days having not ever seen them in the wild before- that's the wonderful thing about walking- you see new things all the time...


More about the earthcache tomorrow
Until then
Gillian