Showing posts with label walks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label walks. Show all posts

Tuesday, 12 November 2013

November visit

Bit of a grey start at Plymouth and blowing a gale. 

Too windy to get to the edge of the heli-deck

Had a good sleep due to being rocked all night and woke to a lovely dawn, we should have been a few hours off Santander but due to bad weather we were about three hours behind schedule. The sea in this pic looks fairly calm but it wasn't.

Sometimes we could see out of the front window...

…and sometimes we couldn't.

By mid morning the swell was calming down a bit although there was still a big ground swell every now and then.

No more photos for a few days but yesterday there was a wonderful sunset that turned the sky to fire.

I really miss the view from here when I am in the UK.

Our new tenants have done some good clearing in the jungle of brambles and autumn is just starting to turn the chestnut trees.

Composting vegetation getting ready to enriched the earth.

Last year's lemon tree pruning seems to have led to a growth spurt, plenty of small flowers starting I hope we get a good crop in the coming year.

Brugmansia still flowering very well.

This young banana recovered well from being strimmed and a young echium sprouting right inside a fuchsia ah well the fuchsia might survive.

We took some time out on Sunday and headed over to the lake near Cabanas, despite being overcast it was a very warm 19C.

 Not a very wide path a couple of hundred meters of vertical drop and very little protection.

Dunno what the iPhone did to make this shot seem so dark it was bright enough at the time, the white streak is where a waterfall streams down the canyon wall.

Having explored the steps of doom by the dam we jaded for a gentle walk along to the old quarry higher up on the valley side. managed to pick another carrier bag full of chestnuts to bring back.

They are replacing the big discharge pipes that run inside the dam, on the outside at the bottom is a load of shuttered fresh concrete and works that are not complete, the water looks only a few cms from starting to pour over the lip, I guess they know what they are doing.

Mark decided to get a closer look over the edge, I did not. 

Somewhere in amongst that bracken on the left is a herd of wild goats, we smelled a few but did not get close on our side.

That is the top part of the waterfall that cascades down the valley sides.

Autumn is only just starting over here.

Earth star just starting to do its slow motion hydraulic explosion...

…a few minutes later and it is growing...

Another 20 mins and it would have looked like this and stunk of rotten meat.

mmmm tasty boletus.
We had a break on our last day, an hour of kayaking down at club nautico

Not a breath of wind when we set off and comfortably warm with glimpses of sunshine.

it was a stunning paddle, we hardly spoke to each other it was so still we didn't want to break the silence.

We eventually stopped and let the ripples play with the reflections.


From here our house looks like it is very close to the lake.

 At the west end of the lake there was a forest of trees to negotiate, the water level was lower than I have ever seen it.

The invading crayfish are not hard to catch, Mark tried one as a hat ornament.

Galicia is vibrant in the sunshine fields turn emerald green.

We could have spent all day looking at the reflections but we had to head home and get on with clearing the house out and packing a trailer full of furniture to take back to the UK.

24 hours later we were in Santander waiting to board the Pont Aven again.

We left in similar weather to that when we arrived but we saw a fair bit of sunshine and the night temperature was often over 17C so it felt a little like a summer trip.

Tuesday, 26 April 2011

Soil and San Andres de Teixido


First thing this morning I had a chat with the young man on the dumper truck and he was only too pleased to drop a load of soil and rocks in our drive, the soil in the front is a bit shallow so this will make life a lot easier for the plants and help define the shape of the drive...once I get a few mins to move it all.

After a busy day back at work and a few hours house sorting I finally got out for a little while, San Andres is about a 20 minute drive, its not far just is a winding slow road but passes through some lovely scenery with cows...
 ...and with flowers...

... and rocks and trees.
The cliffs a little further on are the highest sea cliffs in Europe, they are plenty high enough just here but fitting in time to continue round on the road round to Cabo Ortegal is also well worth a trip.
If you don't visit in your lifetime you will visit after death is the thing people say about it, I am not quite sure what that signifies. Here is the info in Gallego.
San Andres is the little cluster of buildings down in the distance tucked snugly into the cliffside, it is almost as important as the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostella. There is a lovely walk down from the cliff top car park or you can park down at the bottom.
With a bit of a zoom you can see the famous church and where the stalls usually are, there is usually some tacky tourist stuff for sale but there is also some lovely local honey. It was quiet today but can be heaving if you visit on the wrong day.
Behind me the hills were doing soft curvy things.
At my feet the squill is flowering and there is a lemony scent in the air to go with its parma violet one.
These little things are lovely a circle of hearts with a star in the middle ahhhh.
I stopped in at Cedeira on the way back for some shopping and timed the drive past Vilarrube just right as the sun set over the estuary at low tide