The Copper trail is a 60 mile circular walk around Bodmin Moor, researched, invented and named by Mark Camp who has written several books on walks in the area. The name implies a concentration on mining but is actually a reference to the frequency with which one encounters the remnants of mining.

He divides the route up into 6 sections:

• Minions to St Neot (8.5 miles)
• St Neot to Bodmin (13 miles)
• Bodmin to St Breward (10 miles)
• St Breward to Camelford (6 miles)
• Camelford to Five Lanes (10.5 miles)
• Five Lanes to Minions (9 miles)

Mark’s book on the Copper Trail is excellent. It contains details of the route in an easy narrative and pictorial style, along with comments on the sites, flowers, landscape, views and history of the area.

The route is carefully considered and, like any long-distance trail, has its high spots – a wooded path, a riverside walk, a moorland path – artfully linked by less attractive stretches of road.

The Copper Trail name is just justified although one leaves the mining areas for long stretches of the walk. What one does see, however, is the way in which we have changed the landscape over the years, whether for mining or for the airfield, and the way in which the granite stones of the moor have been pressed into service for the charming buildings that one passes.

There are maps such as the Visit Cornwall one and narrative from Oliver’s Cornwall (Oliver rarely does what he is told and enjoys planning his own detours, frequently to good pubs) and our own: