Friday 16th March, we had made plans to walk to Latchbrook again after getting our hiking shoes/boots, just to test them and break them in a little bit. As always, we headed off just after lunch. On the way down to Latchbrook, Zeta managed to spot a Robin by listening to it. It was sitting up in a tree and I managed to get a couple of photos of it (not great ones though). We kept walking, right down to the stream, crossing it at one stage, then back over almost straight away.

We continued down the stream, taking photos along the way. When we were further down the path, I thought I saw something, so I looked again and I was right. It was a squirrel. I got pretty excited, though it had run off. Zeta thought I was seeing things, so we went down a little towards where I saw the squirrel, then I saw it again sitting on a branch but it ran up a tree fairly quickly, so Zeta didn’t see it. She walked ahead of me, and she then saw the squirrel jumping from tree to tree and then running across a branch right over her. I’m quite sure she enjoyed the experience of having a squirrel running above her.

After chasing squirrels for a little while, we continued walking down to the stream itself, coming to a little area which was quite pretty. At this point, we wanted to try and cross the stream to a small area to take some photos, though it was a bit deep, so we decided we’d make a bridge. It was a bit unsuccessful. Zeta had stood on some branches floating at the side in the water to try and pick out some of the bigger branches. I don’t think she realised some of them weren’t that thick at all, and some snapped while standing on them, allowing her foot to slip right into the water lol. Luckily for us, our hiking shoes are waterproof. Unlucky for Zeta, hers are a shoe style rather than a boot, so the water went over her shoe straight in, wetting her sock. I couldn’t help but laugh at her.

A little while after that, I was trying to cross, but couldn’t and ended up ankle deep in the water as well, so that will teach me to laugh.We eventually gave up and headed down further, until we couldn’t any more. There were a few sheep, so Zeta decided to climb a tree to get a better angle on them. I turned and saw her thrusting against the tree and wondered what she was doing… she had her foot stuck between two branches and couldn’t get out lol. Just couldn’t help myself and ended up laughing again. At this point, my camera batteries had gone flat, and Zeta’s were on their way so we headed back, and crossing over into a public bridleway, which was on the other side of the stream. At the beginning, it’s a sheep farm type of thing, and we were walking across, Zeta going a longer way around. I quickly learnt why as my boots and jeans both ended up coated in mud. The mud was literally ankle deep.

Overall, it was quite a nice walk, though conditions weren’t great at all for photography.

Saturday 3rd March, the weather was quite good so we walked into Saltash for lunch (pasties) then continuing down to Lower Fore Street, where we finished our pasties and then went for a walk halfway across the Tamar Bridge, then back again. We then went down to Saltash waterfront to sit with the swans and pigeons for a little while, before deciding to head back home.

Tuesday 6th March, the weather was good again so we walked to Forder for some photography. We set out after lunch, the first part of the walk was mostly road walking. Once we got to Forder, we looked for some ducks to feed, but only found two, which weren’t all that interested, so we continued walking across a grassy field. Here we saw some birds flying around, which were probably buzzards. There were about 5 of them all together in the sky, flying around and calling. We continued walking over the grass to a small trail in the trees. We walked through to the end, took some photographs and decided to head back to the other side of Forder Creek, where the sun was shining. The trail on this side of the creek much longer than the one on the other side, so we killed a lot of time walking through here. The trail was muddy, but gorgeous none the less. We followed this right out into a clearing where we got an amazing view of the Forder Railway Viaduct. This was more towards the bottom of the hill, so we walked to the top, where the view all around was even more amazing. Up here, we took some photographs again, even though the conditions weren’t great for it, and even saw a rabbit. Eventually, we headed back down the trail towards Forder. As we neared, we saw a single Cormorant sitting on a boat, which made for a good photo opportunity. As it was getting late, we just headed straight home.

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