I feel a tiny bit bad that much of the data I post comes from wiki data, so here is a link about Mahón. There is just too much to summarize.
Read about it here:
This was our stopping place on our first Med adventure featuring ourselves as captains. Our plan was to go to Corsica. Walking around town I finally relented and said, “Ok, we can go to Tunisia, but if we get killed, I’ll never let you live it down.”
We bought a pilot book for North Africa, spent one day sightseeing, and sailed for Sardinia, the next stop en route to Tunisia (spelled- Not in the EU).
Mahon is very old city set in a 4 mile inlet. Excellent protection in the marinas, and in anchorages along the inlet. There are even floating docks, where you can tie up and dinghy in to town.
Perhaps the most spectacular hike we did in Mallorca was from the Cuber Reservoir, below, to the town of Soller. We did this hike while Amante was in the Port de Soller marina, with Rudy watching the boat.
Cuber Reservoir
Town along the way
View from the ridge
Fornalutz
Ruta Seca
We walked from the Cuber Reservoir (30 Euro cab ride from taxi stand in Port de Soller) to Binaraix, to Fornalutx, to Soller. Amazing. The reservoir is naturally a meadow in a gorge that has been built to trap water with mountains all around it. A one mile walk alongside the water leads you to sheep grazing lands dotted with derelict olive trees, now and then olive orchards in terraces. We saw sheep that had just been shorn, still bloody, and a trailer full of lambs being taken off to fatten or to slaughter. We saw at Finca L’Ofre loads of sheep being herded into a pen, and what noise!! Like a Taylor Swift concert. The walk from there passes down the gorge into the valley that holds the other towns, just amazing stuff. Renewed olive terraces and some orange orchards, some orange orchards being replaced with vineyards, and always in the distance, the port, the lighthouse and the med. Total of 12 or so miles.
Part of the hike included the Ruta Seca.
We crossed through some sheep farms, and went through the dizzingly quaint town of Fornalutz. This was 6 hours of complete bliss.
We arrived to Palma for the boat show, in which Amante would be hopefully sold. We have this love hate thing with the boat, Neal loves it, and I tolerate it on occasion, like it now and then, and hate it the rest of the time. But I love doing things in the places that Amante can take us. She was stuck to the dock for a week, so I decided to make the most and walk long walks around Palma’s old town, visit some favorite restaurants and make new favorites, and best of all, get another few hikes along the Serra de Tramontana.
Mostly, we sat at the boat show and watched amazing new toy displays, like this one. I call it “Darwin’s Little Helper.”
My niece arrived to stay with us for a month. The next 2 weeks were spent seeing a little of Palma and Mallorca, while passing a cold/sinus infection back and forth.
We toured Valledemosa, Soller, and Fornalutx, towns so beautiful I would agree to live in any of them tomorrow. WE took many hikes, leading our niece to comment, “You guys are really in shape! Uncle Neal is like He-man!”
Our friends Roger and Bea came to visit for a few days, and we hiked a lovely stretch of the GR221 from Soller to Port de Soller. We also went out to eat at some incredible restaurants, which I reviewed on Trip Advisor, under the user name of Runsailwrite. Between Spain last year and this year, plus New Zealand for a month, I am soon to achieve GOD status on Trip Advisor.
We got one sail day and one overnight anchorage with Rachel. We went to Cabrera, the national park island just off Mallorca. It was cold, but we had a nice 10Km hike to the lighthouse and back. It rained just long enough for us to eat our lunch under the eaves of the lighthouse chapel. Nice views, beautiful rocky coastline open to the south, with nothing to see but Africa, about 60 miles away.
Rachel went home, and with only a few items left to repair, we left to go sailing. I think of sailing these days as a means to get to more incredible places to go hiking. I’ve had lots of sailing and would like to be done with it, so please please, buy my boat. To see the Google Earth GPA tracks of the hikes we do, go to this very cool and free website: www.wikiloc.com and search on USER runsailwrite. Click on the author’s name and all my hikes should come up. This link should work:
Cabrera was used to house French prisoners during the Napoleonic Wars. Of 9,000 sent to Cabrera, only 3,600 survived.
It is now an uninhabited islet except for a small station that maintains the National Park properties, including the fort and a church. In the summer a small hotel and restaurant are open. Park bouys must be used, no anchoring allowed, and are hard to book in the summer months. Since May was rather nasty in the Balearics, we had it pretty much to ourselves.
We stayed two nights and hiked 10k to the N’Ensiola lighthouse. Rachel wore her fancy toe shoes.
It rained and we managed to sit under the eaves of the lighthouse chapel for lunch. Cloudy but beautiful day!
Our friends joined us for a short visit to escape the awful weather they were experiencing on their vacation in France. Unfortunately, the boat wasn’t yet ready and the seas were yucky, but the weather in Mallorca was lovely, So we ate at great restaurants and took them on a beautiful hike from Soller to Port Soller and returned by antique tram.
The route passes through ancient olive groves, orange and lemon groves and unsurpassed views. A favorite stop at Ca’s Xorc, a restored farmhouse turned boutique hotel makes for a beautiful day.
We came back to Palma to get the boat ready to be shown for sale in the Palma boat show. We had some lookers, but no buyers, so we will continue to enjoy her until she sells.
We have been in Mallorca close to three weeks, and we test sail tomorrow. It seems like it has taken forever, but that is really pretty fast considering Amante was asleep all winter and she is a big girl to wake up. Plus the first week was the boat show, so we really couldn’t do much work, just pretty her up and try to make her look desirable. We had some interest, but the first guy bought an Oyster 66 and the tall German is still hem-hawing.
I guess on this fortuitous day, our first -meet a pickpocketer up close and personal- day I could get off my rump and start blogging. My niece Rachel arrived ten days ago in Barcelona and I flew over to meet her and introduce her to the old world. She was duly impressed. Then I got a sinus infection, then she got it, and I just lost interest in photos and blogging. I napped a lot. Neal is sniffling, but that didn’t stop the gypsy man from sticking his hand in Neal’s pocket this morning in the fist market. We were buying dinner on a beautiful, busy Friday fish market day, and I heard Neal yell at someone. This was enough to frighten me, as Neal doesn’t yell, but he was grabbing his wallet from a old fat man dressed like a Nantucket tourist, but for the gypsy face. I yelled, “thief!” and led the police to him, where he was picking another man’s pocket 45 seconds after Neal!!! He passed by (and probable handed off something stolen) to the poor, old, “AYUDAME” old woman who sits at every church foyer (on her cell phone when it is quiet). These beggars are thief rings, and a nuisance.
So the police lady ran him off, we took our fish and apples home and Rachel went to the beach. Pretty near perfect Palma day.
Test sail tomorrow and we have guests arriving! Let’s hope Neal stops sniffling.
Palma is the capitol of Mallorca and sits on a very large and protected bay. Amante spent the winter here.
Palma is famous for La Seu, its vast cathedral originally built on a previous mosque. Although construction began in 1229, it did not finish until 1601 and local architect Antoni Gaudí was drafted in during a restoration project in 1901. The Parc de la Mar (Park of the Sea) lies just south overlooked by the great building which sits above it on the city’s stone foundations.
The Old City (in the south-east area of Palma behind the Cathedral) is a fascinating maze of streets clearly hinting towards an Arab past.
With the exception of a few streets and squares which allow traffic and are more populated with tourists most of the time, the walkways of this city quarter are fairly narrow, quiet streets, surrounded by a diverse range of interesting buildings, the architecture of which can easily be compared with those in streets of cities such as Florence (Italy), for example.
The majority are private houses, some of which are open to the public as discreet museums or galleries. The tall structures, characteristic window boxes, detailed metal carvings and overhanging eaves of these buildings make a stark contrast with the view of the bay that is obtained by stepping out of the shady alleyways next to the cathedral and onto the old city walls.
We spent a few nights in Glenorchy in a sweet little Bed and Breakfast. When we arrived we were greeted with afternoon tea, complete with some homemade baked, fattening, delicacy made by the hostess. We had several wonderful hikes from here, wonderful- such an overused un understated word for this part of the world. Breathtaking, otherworldly beautiful, no-wonder-they-shot-Lord-of-The-Rings here, OH MY GOD this is beautiful…everything fails to capture the amazed, glazed look on my face all day, just from looking around me. Maybe a few photos.
photo 31
After hiking on the Routeburn track, the kind hostess just seemed to know carrot cake was Neal’s favorite. It may have been the best one ever.
Clearly we were happy to be back!
After more than 10 years we returned to NZ. I planned the trip with our sons Matt and Ryan as a family hiking trip to hike the Milford Track. We haven’t had a family vacation since the “boys” graduated from college, except the rare coincidental visit on Amante. Their schedules dictate separate visits, so this was a treat. We decided to arrive early and visit the Bay of Islands.
Our fist stop was to visit Pahia, Bay of Islands. What a day! We started with a 5 mile run to Waitangi then on to the Haturu Falls track. This is a deep woods track adjacent to a golf course that is still a Kiwi habitat. We saw none. We didn’t make it all the way to the falls, but the Park and Tretay signing Visitors Center was in full swing at 7 am when we ran through. Feb 6 is Waitangi Day, the celebration of the signing of the treaty between European settlers and the Maori, who now claim the chiefs didn’t understand what they were signing. It is an odd day to celebrate, since the Maori effectively gave their land away very likely without fully understanding the exchange of their land for “peace”, but the celebration was a full day of Maori cultural displays, the haka (?) the fight dance with tongues out and chants, 5 fighter jet show, the giant war canoe, and I don’t really know what all since I was on a boat watching bits and pieces in drive bus from the water.
Our real activity today was the cream run, a boat cruise around the Bay of Islands, in a reproduction tour of the delivery boats that took supplies (cream) to the people living on remote islands. It was sunny and fabulous. We took the Fullers Greatsights Bay of Islands cruise at the recommendation of fellow sailors who run a sailing website. Of course, locals would know the best water tour. It was fantastic. The “Cream Trip” recreates a supply route taken by delivery boats in the years past who took food, supplies, (cream?), to the inhabitants of some of the many Islands’ few inhabitants. We had a lady captain, Tami, who not only could dock with millimeter accuracy in her sleep, she narrated the tour with fascinating information in the beautiful, friendliness-packed accent we love about the New Zealand folk. She knew where to find a pod of dolphin so that those who chose to could swim with the dolphin. I didn’t ask how, I preferred to think it Magic. She may have a ring that makes her disappear. We went out to the hole in the rock, and I think I saw a gangly ill-mannered fellow beating a fish to death before eating him whole. Not really, but the whole trip was a win, and I am in The Lord of the Rings MOOD!
FrankingWorldTraveller 