Great Flat Lode and Carn Brea

We had a quiet night parked in our lay-by and woke up to Cornish Mist. Another motorhome had joined us overnight but left at daybreak.

After breakfast we drove a few miles to a small plant nursery which sells LPG. As we arrived the owner said “do you speak English?” - I was tempted to say “zust a leetul”… We refilled our gas tanks before driving on to Lidl in Redruth. Victualling completed we had coffee before leaving.

We’re heading to a small campsite on the outskirts of Camborne so that we can visit friends who live nearby. The journey was twice as long as it should have been because our satnav tried to take us under a 2.5m bridge. Fortunately this was signposted which meant we were able to take a diversion that went over rather than under the railway!

Arriving at the site we pitched up and paid for a couple of nights. The owner kindly leant us some wedges because the hard standing was on a bit of a slope.

Having levelled Kiki and connected up the shore power we had an early lunch before strapping on our walking boots and settling out on a hike.

The area we are in is called the Great Flat Lode after a large seam of tin which was found here. 

All around there are engine houses and other mine buildings.

We followed part of the mine discovery trail which took us to several small mines and along the track of a ore railway.

After the mines we skirted around the side of Carn Brea before turning and climbing to the top. At 228m above sea level you can see both coasts on a clear day - today we could see St Ives bay up to St Agnes but the south coast was obscured by clouds.

The huge 30m granite monument at the top is very impressive - it doesn’t look that big from a distance!

We made our way down the hill and headed back to Kiki. My step tracker said we’d walked 5 miles but it felt a lot further than that!

On the return leg we passed a field where there was a tiny Shetland pony and two pigs. As we approached, all three came noisily running to the gate where they proceeded to make quite a fuss - we think they had been hand reared to make them so friendly.

Returning to Kiki just a it got dark, we had our evening meal before settling down for the night.