The Jamaica Inn. Cornish smugglers’ haunt made famous by Daphne du Maurier.

Ballad of Bodmin Moor

Wildness roams o’er this moor

From murderous coves to craggy tor

Red mist glowed from greedy men’s eyes

Dying voices echo in curlews’ cries

Men wrecked ships, bodies and minds asunder

Their consciences laid low with their plunder

Relishing the violent outcome of their sins

They inhabited the most inhospitable of inns

Lives here were feverish, frantic

The antithesis of today’s ‘romantic.’

Creative Journey

I got to Bodmin Moor having walked from the coast and was knackered. Being summer, I thought there’d be lots of traffic, wrong! Stayed there for ages under the overhang wondering if I’d end up kipping there. A car did eventually appear – a Dutch couple who spoke no English, but who were going to Jamaica Inn. We ended up spending two days together (I kipped in their car overnight as no YHAs nearby) as communicated through mime, acting and drawings. Maps being universal, we planned where they wanted to go and I showed them various places before we parted company in St Austell where there was a YHA.