Outdoor Discoveries

A mid-winter Mediterranean escape: Part 1

This time two years ago, I was in the business of surveying numerous locations for a momentary mid-winter escape to a warmer climate before settling on Mallorca after a chat with my brother that allowed me to build up the necessary courage. Another motivation was that I wanted to do something different between Christmas and New Year. A planned trip to Ireland in the same period in 2015 was aborted when grief hit me with a vengeance. After that experience, I was all the more determined to ensure that Christmas 2016 felt very different.

After a Christmas period laden with plenty of local walking that got as far as Tegg’s Nose on St. Stephen’s Day (or Boxing Day as some know it), I headed off to Mallorca in an effort to make a hard break in the run of things. Having sunny weather all the time was a novelty for me as I took the sights around Palma as well as heading out for walks around Port de Pollença, Sóller and Port d’Andratx. That ensured that I enjoyed a mixture of coastal and hill walking together with a feeling of leaving normal life after me. It might have worked too well for a cold slowed my beginning to 2017 while it felt for a long time like it was refusing to leave me. Other than that, the getaway was undoubtedly what I needed to snap me out of a mental rut into which I had fallen.

Arrival

Unlike previous overseas excursions and even Irish ones these days, I arrived in Palma de Mallorca at night. The pre-booked shuttle to my hotel was not to be found, so a taxi was hailed for the purpose. Noting the fare incrementing on the metre, I wondered how much this was going to cost and it was with some relief that the floodlit Cathedral of Santa Maria came into view and my hotel was not far from there. Even with the darkness, I was lured out of doors in an act of exploration and that included pottering about the said cathedral with its opulent flying buttresses and other medieval architectural flourishes. As I returned to the hotel for the night, the stage was set for a daytime sighting next morning. Temperatures had been very mild too, so this was about to be the start of an unusual experience for me.

Around Palma and Port Pollença

Part of that oddness was the fact that there was one sunny day after another. Having lived on maritime islands where sunny spells are as finite as they are occasional, this was striking. Being precious about episodes of sunshine means that there is a tendency to rush around to make the best of them. What I probably more needed at the time was to slow down and let things flow at a gentler pace.

Instead, I set about exploring Palma as I have done with so many other places. It might have taken a while for the route between the hotel, and the bus station to gel in my memory after embarking on several circuitous itineraries, but the way to Palma’s cathedral saw no such errors. It seemed that a straight route to the dominating edifice was hard for anyone not to find. The bright sunshine felt at odds with the time of year and the pale stonework only amplified its effects.

Pottering about the edifice and its environs kept me going for the whole morning and many a photo was made of near and far. Eventually, it could not hold me, for I wanted to see more of the island. To do that, I needed to seek out the city bus station.

That was done in a customary meandering manner and I discovered that it was an underground operation with the island’s mainline trains leaving from the same place as its bright red and yellow interurban buses. The curious cycling of train departures through different languages; English was among them, though the idea of German being included along with something more local like Spanish or Catalan appeals to me even if my memory cannot confirm it as being a fact.

Once I got my bearings around the interchange’s subterranean construction, I got something to eat there and then headed back to my hotel, possibly to organise myself before travelling further afield. On returning to the transport hub, I caught a bus to Port de Pollença for an afternoon visit. Before I even arrived in Mallorca, train travel had been rejected due to its restricted reach; it hardly went near the mountain areas that I wished to explore.

The sunlit Serra de Tramuntana accompanied my northward journey, but this was not to be a day for their exploration. Instead, the northern coast was my intended destination and I admired what I passed on the way there. Once in Port de Pollença, I made for the coast and pottered along the shoreline as workmen attended to one of the houses along there. It may have felt like summer to me, but the place was far from bring thronged and I had ample time to survey what lay around Badia de Pollença.

Most of that involved road and footway tramping since this was not a day for more adventurous wandering. In hindsight, there might have been a tempting short off-road stroll to be had but I fancied seeing if I could get a closer look at the Peninsula de Formentor. Along the way, there was time for photos and for realising the limitations of the map loaded on my GPS receiver. It did not help that I was in the vicinity of a military facility so I followed the MA-2210 around its switchback bends to gain some height before leaving it on a path signed for El Caló for a wilder feel. The escape did not last long for I did not fancy losing height to reach the shore only to have to gain it again. Instead, I stopped a while before starting to retrace my steps back to civilisation again.

Port de Pollença proved confusing to negotiate and I very nearly missed a bus back to Palma but for an observant and facilitating driver. There could have been a two-hour wait for the next departure so I was appreciative, and the bus took a slightly different route too since it called at Cala Sant Vicenç. Light was fading on the way back to Palma and I made a roundabout way back to the hotel too; it took time for the way there from the transport interchange to become engrained in my mind. The explorations of the ensuing days were to ensure that and they are the subjects of subsequent parts of this trilogy.

Travel Arrangements

Outbound flight from Manchester to Palma de Mallorca. Return bus journey to Port Pollença.

Experiences with Spanish hiking maps

Currently, I am writing up my walking trip to Mallorca from December 2016 but it is proving to be slow going. Enthusiasm for completing the job is waning so splitting up the endeavour might be in order, especially since the narrative is heading in different directions. Towards this end, I will share my ruminations on using Spanish hiking maps since they have intruded in the trip report and could deflect it from proceeding in a single direction. As things stand, it needs some additions even if it already has grown quite long already.

Before I left, I ensured that I was supplied with maps. The best of these were ones by Editorial Alpina and they covered the Serra de Tramuntana as a two map set. The scale was 1:25000 with hiking trails well marked but I ended up stepping outside their coverage around Port d’Andratx and needed one from the 1:40000 four map set by Reise Know-How to make up the shortfall. The latter covers the whole island, shows hiking trails and is made from waterproof paper, not that I needed the last feature on my trip.

Though it provided useful trail tracking, my Garmin GPS receiver proved less useful because of the poor quality of its Spanish maps. Around Port de Pollença, it may have been stymied by the presence of a military facility but the shortcomings were more than apparent around Port d’Andrtatx when I failed to locate the path that would have led me to a track towards Sant Elm. It did not help that I was in a fragile state that day but I would consider an alternative on another Spanish trip.

Though maps from Spain’s national mapping agency CNIG do not show trails, they do come in 1:50000 and 1:250000 scales that are available in digital form through SityTrail and ViewRanger. The former of these offers annual subscriptions while only an expensive all country lifetime licence is available from the latter. Both offer mobile phone apps so they would be usable much like that from Britain’s Ordnance Survey, useful as a pinpointing backup to a paper map for those moments when uncertainty descends though complementing with a compass is best.

If I was ever to venture onto Spanish territory again, I would be tempted to give SityTrail a whirl while out walking. For writing the Mallorca trip report, I have an active subscription and have been able to load GPX tracks on there after exporting them from my Garmin device. That should help with route descriptions even with CNIG data behind them and added photos can act as confirmation.

Sharing or sparing?

Having what is called a bucket list, a list of places that you would like to visit while you can, is common these days but I wonder if such a thing is all that desirable. By the its nature, the problems start when compiling a list of such ideas because chances are that you will select places that already are popular. That applies as much when perusing travel magazines or holiday brochures as it does when using social media.

One consequence of this is that certain locations become too popular for the sake of sustainability and that leads to restrictions that affect the independent traveller. South American destinations like Machu Pichu and Torres del Paine National Park come to mind here but the problem is spread around the world. Scotland’s Isle of Skye has experienced problems that never made the news  before and you only have to see how many visit well promoted attractions like the Cliffs of Moher to see how many people visit a small number of locations in Ireland at a time during the high season.

This then poses something of a dilemma: do you cater for the visitor numbers or do you restrict them? With wilderness and conservation areas, there is a tendency to do the latter though it does have the consequence of pushing up visitor costs and that may have its benefits for local tourism businesses as you may find on a trip to places in either the Canadian Rockies or Alaska. When you add in short summer tourism seasons, the effect by necessity is more pronounced.

In other destinations, they add in facilities for the extra visitors with some decrying the effect that this has had on Spain’s Mediterranean coastline because of hotel and holiday apartment construction. Parts of the Alps are afflicted like this but in a different way: it is the infrastructure of skiing resorts that hardly help appearances in mountain country during the summer season. Both examples make you wonder at the appropriateness of such developments and they must tug at the heartstrings of anyone who adores mountain and coastal scenery.

Another aspect of any overdevelopment is that you can install something that encourages the otherwise unprepared into wild places without realise the possible dangers that are there. For instance, I seem to have inherited my father’s unease at cliff edges and my knowledge of how slippery limestone can be almost made me shout at people to keep back from the edge on a damp day hike around the Cliffs of Moher and Doolin. It is little wonder that staff are equipped with whistles to direct the unaware away from peril.

There is overcaution too and one example is the boardwalk on Cuilcagh Mountain and how incongruous it looks in the landscape through which it conveys people to the top of the hill shared between Cavan and Fermanagh, between Éire and Northern Ireland. It also does not help that it stops short of the top too but the boggy morass deters most. Another location where path development attracted adverse comment was at Sliabh Liag in County Donegal but it might be that some sense prevailed there in the end.

Hillwalking is a growing pastime in Ireland so there remains a lot to learn in a country where there is neither experience nor tradition of path and track building in such places. Thankfully, organisations like Mountain Meitheal and Mountaineering Ireland together with initiatives like Helping the Hills are starting to address this so lessons are learned from places like Scotland and applied to get sensible solutions to the growing problem of erosion on popular hills. It is something that needs attention as much as securing access for hill wandering in the first place.

The mention of countryside access brings me to another factor that causes some places to feel overloaded: a lack of alternatives. It is not everywhere that has the liberal access rights that are enjoyed in Scotland and across Scandinavia so there can be a very really reduction in the number of places where you can explore. The options may not stop you going to those better known places like Norway’s Preikestolen before finding other quieter hikes nearby as knowledge grows and maps feel more confiding.

It is this last point that inspires the title and the theme runs through Fiona Reynolds’ The Fight for Beauty, a book that I read last autumn. It is not for nothing park rangers in Denali National Park tell you not to walk one after another in a group so a path never develops and that everyone’s backcountry journey is their own. When there is plenty of land for all, we can spread out and find our own space to recharge weary spirits. That is easier when we are not retracing the steps of others all the while and it can have a lighter impact on the countryside too with less erosion caused by many feet and much path widening. While it can be true that we get confined by or own lack of knowledge, physical restrictions caused by not having enough other places to go hardly help either. Overcoming both might be the ultimate answer to the visitor management conundrum.

Autumn reflections

There have been a few nights this week that possessed the chill of autumn and some trees already are losing their spring and summer colouring. In fact, I picked two early conkers on a walk this evening. Meteorologists may prefer us to wait until the start of September but I always wonder if autumn really starts in the middle of August. Some I overheard talking about turning on their heating may not disagree with me so strongly.

It is strange how we assign the summer months because when it comes to hours of daylight, August in some ways is a mirror image of April. The main difference generally is the residual heat remaining after June and July, something that can hold until the start of November. This past summer has been exceptional so it is not that the school year starts after a break without its share of sunshine even if August came damp.

For whatever reason, I can get ideas about fresh restarts around this time. It might be that there is a lull during September or the start of those school, college and university years but my mind can fill with possibilities while bemoaning that such things often are stymied by a decline in energy coinciding with growing hours of darkness. It often feels like a brief burst of energy before other things take hold.

The latter has me wondering about a midwinter getaway since I did not have an overseas trip this summer because of other concerns. This line of thought also emerged two years ago and there was a trip to Mallorca with some walking that in on my radar for a forthcoming trip report. Other possibilities will be assessed and enough time allowed so as not to have 2019 began like 2017 when a heavy cold weighed me down.

2018 has been a busy year for me with a move into self-employment taking up the summer months and a series of property maintenance tasks in Ireland that were planned during the career break that I began in August 2017. The last part of 2016 came busy with Irish matters so that might not have helped the start of the next year either. As I look to the rest of this year, I hope that work will remain steady enough for me to focus on other things like getting out and about in any good weather that comes. Life has become an adventure again and that blows away any staleness that once may have beset me.

Incidental ambles

The start of a new year can be a useful time to take stock of life. January can be a month that some find too quiet but it has its uses as I am finding out for myself. A current career break means that I have added occasion to think over what I would like to do for a living. After five years of family bereavements followed by responsibilities added through inheritance, there is plenty of reason for this. What had not been obvious to me is that my last job was not a match and the experience left its mark, one that needs to be overcome.

Throughout all of this, I am not forgetting that I am an explorer at heart. There has been time to catch up on reading and I now have my fill of travel writing so I will not be lured into book purchases as easily as before. More discernment could be the way of things for me and that cannot be so bad when finances need to be kept in check during times like this hiatus from work.

Also, I have been travelling around England and Wales collecting ideas for walking trips like Roseberry Topping and Pumlumon Fawr. Surveying the countryside about the latter brought me the added benefit of a short if muddy stroll around Llangurig. Visiting nearby Rhayader is another thought and a short stay in Aberystwyth could facilitate more than initially had come to mind. Other parts of the Welsh River Wye are ripe for exploring too and the hills of the Black Mountain in the western side of the Brecon Beacons could be another tempting idea.

City visits to Edinburgh and Cardiff have come to pass. In the middle of the latter, the banks of the River Taff offered an oasis of calm with Llandaff Cathedral feeling as if it is in a country rather than where it is. Bute Park was another delight that makes me wonder why it took so long for me to make an independent visit to the place and there is Cardiff Castle if I wanted to include that as part of a return visit. There is plenty there for cyclists too and I am not surprised that bicycle hire is available.

Those city wanderings remind me that there have been times during the last few years when energy for more strenuous outings has not been as readily available. Edinburgh has featured quite a few times and there are regular haunts nearer my home in Macclesfield. Knutsford’s Tatton Park, Disley’s Lyme Park together with Macclesfield’s Tegg’s Nose Country Park and Dane’s Moss Nature Reserve all have been places where quick visits offered respite from life’s tumult when enthusiasm for longer trips was not to be found. The same could be said for more urban spots like Buxton, Chester, Sheffield and even Manchester. Anywhere where a coffee can be enjoyed away home has had its uses.

Strolls on my own doorstep like circuits taking in Prestbury all had their uses when my head needed clearing, like on Christmas Eve during my first ever Christmas spent in Macclesfield. That was a stormy affair, as much in my mind as it was out of doors. When a brighter interlude offered, it did not need much persuasion for me to head out on a longer round that linked Tegg’s Nose, the Saddle of Kerridge and the White Nancy. It became just the breather that I needed at the time.

The last few months have been as much about exorcising hurtful memories as anything else. That included the past Christmas and New Year period when it felt more normal than others. Trips to Tatton Park, Manchester and Lincoln all broke up the flow and I also got learning that camping stoves should be used out of doors too, a misadventure that I have no relish for repeating.

Getting past that was like everything else in life in recent times. 2017 became a year when I lightened some of life’s load so I need to think ahead now. Getting an enjoyable and fulfilling work life is one thing and my zest for exploring countryside continues. Overseas excursions could restart yet since I am making my way through Kev Reynolds’ Walking in the Alps at the moment and there is his The Swiss Alps, The Pyrenees and Trekking in the Alps after that. That lot should keep me going for a while yet and I am not overlook what hill country is nearer to hand either.