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Hiking for the Soul

5/8/2012

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The Maltese Islands offer fairly good walking opportunities for most of the year – that is excepting the hot summer months when nature goes dormant and the land turns dusty brown. The landscape is varied and the towns and villages are a chaotic mix of fine old buildings with a hotchpotch of mostly bland newer buildings coming up oh...virtually everywhere and all the time really.  The countryside (or more precisely what remains of it) is typically Mediterranean with small fields and rubble walls – lots of rubble walls; we are a very territorial people and we mark our boundaries in no uncertain terms.

Then there are some areas where the terrain could not be conquered, divided and sub-divided, utilized or downright plundered despite the islanders’ best efforts (and we do try hard...)

These are the places where one can walk in solitude and silence, where rambling becomes a spiritual exercise - food for the eyes and the soul.

To my mind there are three special places which fall into this category and I try to visit each one at least once a year on my solitary walks.

The foremost place to walk in silence and feast the soul and eyes is by far the cliffs of Manikata – an extensive area which now forms part of the Majjistral Nature Park and so is theoretically an area saved for posterity. I have already written extensively about this place in a previous post http://www.stevebonellocartoons.com/2/post/2011/10/recharging-batteries.html
so I will not bother you with repetition here. I will just place a panoramic image of the area here and let it speak for itself...

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Rdum id-Delli in the Majjistral Park
The second on my list of magical walking places is the Qammieh promontory in the far north of Malta. This grand piece of natural real estate is dominated by the imposing St.Agatha’s Tower – more commonly known as the Red Tower (It-Torri l-Ahmar) . A lonely road winds by the tower to the end of the promontory with incredible open views on all sides, giving one a rare sense of space in an otherwise hopelessly crowded island.

But again, like Majjistral, for the real sense of wilderness one has to go beneath the cliffs and ramble and meander amongst a mighty array of huge boulders which over hundreds and thousands of years have come unhinged from the cliffs above and tumbled their way onto the scree below. This is one tough bastard of a place to walk but there is one huge reward at the extreme end – a lovely rock shelf of a beach backed by white stone cliffs. The sense of space and aloneness  here is quite frankly awesome. As I said it’s a tough walk and getting lost in places is almost to be expected....having walked this area a dozen times or so I still manage to end up in rocky cul de sacs way too frequently for my liking... The only blot in this walk (one normally needs three hours minimum for it) is that for some parts of it the garish pink slab which is the Paradise Bay Hotel remains a visible reminder that civilisation is too uncomfortably close for comfort...


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Land's End - The rocky foreshore at Qammieh
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Another view of the Qammieh beach
Number three on this short list is the cliff edge walk starting from Migra Ferha along the stretch of cliffs known as the Irdum tal-Vigarju. On one side the deep blue sea, on the other a steep hillside crowned by a crumbling cliff in places. This must be one of the best Mediterranean cliff edge walks – the only downside being that the path in places edges way too uncomfortably to the edge and a couple of short inland detours are called for for safety’s sake. At the end of about an hour’s cliff hugging one descends to a very large, flat limestone outcrop perched a few metres above the sea. This is known as Il-Blata tal-Melh . (the salt rock) and is for me the high point of this walk. 

Though most of this area is basically untainted by human hands, a very brave attempt was in fact made to harness this smooth rock platform in times gone by as there is a stretch of salt pens carved in the soft rock. There is also a sort of open well-head leading directly to the sea below (one thing you really need to look out for- it's unmarked and therefore quite dangerous if you're unaware of it) – where probably salt water used to be drawn to fill the pens, and there is a carved stairwell leading directly to the sea, probably to provide easy access to the area by boat – much easier than acccess on foot actually.

Today these salt pens look abandoned but it is not uncommon to come across a fisherman or two in what arguably is the quietest and most remote place to pursue this activity.

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Rdum tal-Vigarju with Blata tal-Melh in the distance
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The remote Blata tal-Melh
A few words of warning – if you are not familiar with these places do no go alone. The general recommendation is to go in a group of three as a minimum. If you suffer from vertigo or find basic rock clambering difficult then these places are not for you. Check the weather before you go - all of these places can be dangerous in inclement weather.

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Recharging Batteries

28/10/2011

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After a month that has been more hectic and frustrating than usual it was time to call a timeout and recharge batteries. For me the best way to do that is to take a day off and descend to the boulder scree below the Manikata cliffs. It’s the one place I know where you can walk for three, four hours and you are almost assured you will not encounter anyone.

In an island so crowded and noisy this is a rare and precious luxury. You just make your way up, down and around boulders and rocky outcrops, clay slopes and stony paths. There is a varied and colourful vegetation even at this time of year when the first rains have only just started to colour summer’s uncompromising dry earth. The views are of the mighty cliffs above on one side and the open sea on the other. There is no building in sight except for some ancient remains of walls and what appear to be a few long abandoned animal pens scattered here and there.

This is probably the largest area of (almost) pure, unadulterated wilderness in Malta. It is certainly a magical place if you’re a nature lover or the type who simply loves the sound of silence.  An elementary skill to clamber over rocks helps of course, and an ability to remain calm if you happen to lose your way is also necessary. I have now trailed this area often enough not to worry about the second requirement. As for the first – I never venture down there if I feel the slightest bit unfit, queasy or in any way unsteady on my feet.

It is almost incredible to think that just a few years back official plans had envisaged a vast golf course on Xaghra l-Hamra which is the garigue plateau overlooking this amazing site. God only knows what sort of rubble and soil debris would have been happily chucked over the cliff top, ruining once and for all this majestic natural site. Thankfully what we euphemistically term as the “competent authorities”  backtracked from their madcap ways some time later and the whole area is now optimistically called the Majjistral (that’s the Northwest wind) Nature and History Park and given the highest (paper) protection possible.

I like this loose arrangement. This area (including the beautiful Xaghra l-Hamra garigue) was almost completely off limits up to a few years ago, and being chased off this vast, publicly owned piece of natural real estate was the order of the day. Various No Entry signs adorned the whole place – notably in the hunting and trapping seasons.  Enough said.

I usually do this trek on my own starting either at the Rdum id-Delli end and trudging southwards towards Ras il-Wahx – or the other way round. Once or twice a year I go down there in a small group of four to six people but it is difficult to do the complete trek with this number – someone always tires out and starts moaning to cut the trek short and find a way up.

This time I was just with my friend and co-worker Gilbert who probably needed this nature pilgrimage as much as I did. Talking of recharging batteries, Gilbert incidentally writes a wonderful motivational blog called Soul Hiker. The link is here http://soulhiker.com/

The official site of the Majjistral Nature and History Park is here http://www.majjistral.org/
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