Climbing the Quarry

There are some 'icons' of Bodmin Moor that I definitely want to visit now that I've got the chance. Stone circles are always on my wishlist and Bodmin Moor is host to a big site consisting of three circles, known as "The Hurlers". This is my destination for today.

After getting of the highway*, I soon find myself stuck. Road works. Sat nav knows the solution: we take the backlanes! Oh how wonderful… I gotta admit, you get to see a lot of the country you would miss out on otherwise. I just keep hoping the whole time I don't meet too many other cars.

The car park on the other hand is wonderful. Spacious and, in contrast to the coastal car parks, parking here is free. Even more wonderful, the stone circles are just a 100 metre away. Turning on my sixth sense, I walk into one of the circles. There's a rock positioned like a bench, giving me a dry meditation spot. In silence I sit, reaching out, sensing. Initially, the energy feels light. Then it starts to change, making me feel slightly unwell and in a somewhat negative mood.

Lately, I've noticed that all places that are marked as 'spiritual energies' have a tendency to 'lower' my own vibrations (even though lower is not an appropriate description, at the moment it is the best I can come up with, lower or dense or even negative). Instead I find that it is nature itself that provides me with the environment to balance and align myself. Interestingly, here helpful energies that I need to deepen my awareness and expand my consciousness, show up in the most unexpected places and forms.

So I decide to leave the stones to themselves and, despite the rain and wind, go out on the open Moors for a walk. I set out for the Twelve Men's Tor but soon find myself dashing my way through a marsh, because it's so much fun to walk over an overgrown stone wall that seems to act as a bridge. At the end, it appears that the marsh is bigger than my bridge. Fortunately there always have been some cows before you, leaving clear tracks and with a backtrack I follow their path until I'm on safe ground again. In front of me is a quarry and I head up there.

Quarries are an interesting thing. Obviously the result of mining, they now form beautiful reserves, filled with water and grown with moss, bushes and trees. The quarry gives me shelter from the wind and I stay here for a while to take a short rest on a lovely spot with overhanging rocks, full of moss from which water drips.

I look to my right. There seems to be a path, sort of. Straight up to the top. I could go out of the quarry on the high side. "No way, that goes literally vertical", I tell myself. Up to the highest part of the quarry, while I can easily walk out on the low side. Too curious of course, I decide to inspect. Hmmm, the rocks here are positioned quite convenient, they seem to form something like a stair. 

Could I do it?? I decide to take it step by step. As long as I can go back, I'm good. Slowly I climb (or scramble is more like it), securing the position of my feet before putting my weight on it and lifting me up. It works. This is great fun. Fully focused I keep going. All the way ... until I scramble onto the top. 

I stand up and take a few steps back from the edge before I look down: holy, did I really do this? It's deep down there. I laugh out loud. Life energy surging through me. This is living!

*A Cornish highway is comparable to a backlane in NL – that we call "polderweg". Add a pothole here and there and decorate the whole thing with trees and bushes often overhanging the road – which definitely gives it a magical atmosphere. Oh and remember to keep up with traffic, also in the bends, 70km/h is considered really annoying by drivers (lot of bravery I'd say and I often find myself at the head of a parade - thinking wow quiet this road, until I look in my mirror).