Perched up on the north of Bodmin Moor, Brown Willy (which translates rather more romantically, from old Cornish, as ‘hill of swallows’) is a mantle on the Cornish landscape, visible from the A30, and responsible for all manner of bad weather fronts, known as the Brown Willy Effect.

It’s the highest peak in Cornwall, and as such, has always begged me to be climbed. So, on an early autumnal weekend, we packed up the van with walking boots, water bottles, one black dog and some food provisions with the aim of conquering this mighty 420m peak.

We parked up for the night in the most divine little spot just outside of Bowithick – a grassy little idyll, dotted with gnarly trees, rushing little streams and a voluptuous valley running right up onto the moor with the peak of Brown Willy just visible on the horizon. We watched the huge, yellow harvest moon rise in the sky, whilst listening to bleeting sheep and the rush of water.

In the morning, we packed up our bags and headed out up the valley and on to the moor – just us, the dog, a lot of sheep, a few cattle, moorland ponies, skylarks and swallows. We headed straight up the hill, past the source of the River Fowey, and onwards to the summit.

From the top of Brown Willy you can see for miles, north to Camelford, south over the shimmering Colliford Lake and onwards to Caradon Hill and beyond. On the way down, we hugged into the valley that runs through Brown Willy and Rough Tor and back down to Bowithick, following the stream on its journey seaward.

The walk is relatively easy and took us about four hours in total, which included lots of stops to eat biscuits and enjoy the views. At the end, we lay by the stream with a cup of tea, whilst the black dog adopted a ‘bake and dip’ routine. Heaven.

Images by Sian Pickles