Madeira Revisited 7

Tags

Cabo Girao, Echium candicans, Fnchal, levada, Madeira, Madeiran chaffinch, Pride of Madeira, Rabacal, Residencial Pina, Risco

Madeira Revisited 7. Last full day. By the way, my memory was playing me up.  It wasn’t on Day 5 but today that we went to Cabo Girâo, at 580metres/1900 feet the highest cliff in ‘Europe’. Here’s the view eastwards, towards Funchal, from the glass platform.  From there, we continued along the coast to the west, and then turned inland to another upland, very different from what we had seen, a plateau heathland, once more above the clouds.  They were building a huge reservoir where we made a brief stop (in the middle of the left-hand brown area on the map), but we were there to see more of this magnificent native plant, called Pride of Madeira, echium candicans.  I’d liked it so much the first time I saw it, on the first day, that I’d bought a t-shirt.  The flowerheads really are this big. The label says it was made in Madeira.

Next we descended in our minibuses to a place called Rabaçal, (on the left-hand edge of the brown bit on the map), within the clouds. Indeed it was difficult to tell whether we were in mist or whether it was actually raining.  Fortunately, the longest part of our subsequent walk was downwards on a long, quite narrow, very quiet, wind-y road, and out of the clouds.

Good to see this natural stream, after all those levadas

We were all spread out, and, uncertain as to whether we should continue on the road or take this steep path, Christine, Richard, David and I stood here for a long while nattering. It turned out we could have taken either.

When the tarmac came to an end, we continued on a further steep path downwards, but this fortunately became a flat levada walk shortly afterwards.

Madeiran chaffinches were everywhere, and very friendly. I have resisted posting photos of them every day.  This one, like many, had a deformity on its feet.

At the end – a place called Risco – there was a long, but narrow, waterfall, to which I found it difficult to do justice in photos. 

 

 

 

The walk was a there and back one again.

There was no doubt a fantastic view behind the cloud…

It was with great pleasure that most of us, when we got back to the tarmac road, took a little bus provided by the local authority (at 3 euros each) to get back to our own minibuses.  All this took much longer than anticipated, and it was rather late when we had our lunch in what was no doubt a beautiful spot on the heath, picnic tables and all, but sadly we were once more in the chill and damp of cloudland.

 

Our final stop of the day was in what was formally designated ‘cloud forest’ (warmer here because more sheltered), where we were able to see how plants just absorbed water from the atmosphere, and indeed were growing on each other.  Back at the hotel, it was time to pack, then go down one last time to a restaurant near the seafront, and climb back again.

The following morning, it was time to say good bye to the hotel (the Residencial Pina) and its friendly staff.

My room right in the middle, over the breakfast room. That’s a dragon tree.

That had come into harbour overnight

We gather at the main building/bar awaiting our lifts to the airport

When I visited Madeira in November 2016 on a regular tourist holiday, which I did much enjoy, I had sensed that there must be wilder areas, where it was possible to look around without the view being interrupted by rooves and cables.  This holiday proved to me that this was true, and showed me just how beautiful deeper Madeira is.  There are still some things I would like to explore there…

 

Madeira Revisited 6

Tags

Atlantic spotted dolphin, cable car, Cabo Girao, Cory's shearwater, Funchal, last Hapsburg, Monte, Monte Palace Tropical Gardens, Naturetrek, pastel de nata, Reid's hotel, VMT Madeira catamaran

Madeira Revisited 6.  Free day. I definitely wanted to go up to Monte on the cable car, and I definitely wanted to go out on a cetacean watching boat trip, as I had enjoyed both so much in November 2016.  Naturetrek, the wildlife travel company I was with, had reserved a place for me on a boat trip they recommended, in a fast RIB (rigid inflatable boat), and that sounded fun.  (I had been on a catamaran on my previous visit.)

When I got down to a later breakfast than usual, everyone had been and gone, bar our leader and his assistant. Most were planning to visit the Monte Palace tropical gardens which I had so enjoyed before, and then go on to the Botanical Gardens afterwards, and one had even a further garden in mind for after that. I was planning to take things more leisurely.

In due course I walked down to the seafront,

Just a little reminder of how steep it was.

The Bonita da Madeira again

and made my way gently to the cable car base.  At the bottom was a small exhibition showing how the local embroidery was made.  I was pleased because I knew that one of my companions, who had been disappointed that the embroidery factory was to be shut on this (Sun)day, would have seen it on her own way up to Monte.

I was not disappointed in the cable car ride. 

 

It was pleasing to see the regrowth after the disastrous arson that had taken place two years previously.  Four people had died, and last time I was there a young man was awaiting trial.  I learnt this time that he is now serving ten years’ imprisonment.

Once up at Monte, I wandered around and had a look at the church, and examined this statue in its forecourt of Charles/Karl/Carlo Hapsburg, the last reigning (until 1918) Austro-Hungarian Emperor, nephew of the assassinated Franz Ferdinand of Austria. He died in Madeira in 1922. And I noticed that the toboggans weren’t running.  (One ride on them in a lifetime is enough.)I then went to the café hoping to have a pastel de nata (custard tart), but had to settle for a large portion of just the custard itself.  It was good!  At the same time I watched the cable cars, and tried to see the mechanism by which the pods switched to another speed.  Even once back in the cable car I failed miserably to do so, though I could feel the change of gear.  The ride down was just as enjoyable, and there were no blue shirt reflections to mess up my pictures this time.  The ride is so quiet you can hear birds!

 

I walked along the sea front towards the boat companies’ outlets.

Sea defences…

…hopefully more effective than this, facing out to sea.

I had 90 minutes to spare before my boat was due to leave, but something told me to go to check in and pay well in advance.  I’m glad I did. They had been wanting to reach me to tell me that they had had to cancel, because they had had a big party cancellation themselves.  They suggested an RIB with another company, but said that even that was not certain to happen, so when they than suggested the catamaran trip I had done 18 months previously, I seized upon it.  More hanging around, but I spun my lunch out, saw and greeted four of my companions returning from a different boat trip, and in due course it was my turn. 

Yet again the Bonita da Madeira

After a while we headed for where a pod of Atlantic Spotted Dolphins was said to be hanging out, and for 15 minutes we were entertained by at least 20 of these small cetaceans, surrounding the boat near and far, some of them bow-riding.

My favourite photo of course

Showing why these are called Atlantic Spotted Dolphin

Later on, we made for where a (Bryde’s) whale was thought to be (there is communication between the boats throughout these trips) but despite our hanging around beyond the time needed to return to the harbour on time, it did not surface.  But I much enjoyed watching the sea birds, and I was told  that these were mainly Cory’s shearwater.

 

 

As we made out way past Cabo Girâo, where we had been the previous day, we saw  another kind of bird up in the sky, taking advantage of the thermals. Some of them accompanied us, or we them, back along the coast, and two landed on a beach.  This final picture is of the celebrated Reid’s Hotel in Funchal. Four of our number had splashed 155 euros a head on dinner there one night!As I would have been late meeting up with people I had arranged to eat with, I spent 7 euros on a taxi back up to the hotel, feeling guilty as I did so, but made up for a it later after a delicious meal, when once more, I trekked back up on foot with my friends.

Madeira Revisited 5

Tags

Cabo Girao, Châo da Ribeira, Encumeada, Fireworks, Funchal, Indian red admiral, laurel forest, laurisilva, levada, Madeira, Madeiran saxifrage, roseate tern, Sao Vicente, speckled wood

Madeira Revisited 5. I don’t know what the weather was like on the southern coast of the island on the Saturday, but for some of our varied experiences elsewhere on the Saturday it was cold and/or damp, though things did get better from time to time. There were several elements to this long day.  We were first taken to Cabo Girâo, the highest sea cliff in ‘Europe’. (Being Portuguese, Madeira counts as Europe, though geologically it is part of the African plate.) I had been here before, and ‘thrilled’ once more to standing on a glass platform with nothing below that.

Photo taken on previous visit

Then we moved on to Encumeada in the middle of the island (1007 metres/3303 feet), where the chill was really felt, especially as some of us had decided that we did not need to carry or wear as much weather protection as previously.  We had been warned, so had only ourselves to blame!  Anyway, we had a mile-long walk along a levada, the borders of which were not entirely by natural vegetation but included some attractive planting.  At the end of our walk was a tunnel, through which the levada continued, and along which we had been intended to walk, but I was glad that that thought had been abandoned – it would have meant uncomfortable bending over for 800 metres.  I did venture a very little way into it, and if this photo is viewed on a big enough screen, the light at the end of the tunnel can just be seen.

(Photo artificially over-exposed. It was really much darker than this.)

 

For some reason this cockerel was hanging around.

Back the mile to our minibuses, and we moved on to Sâo Vicente on the north coast.  My memory of this place in November 2016 was of a meal taken in a revolving restaurant.  This time our stop was for coffee, and then for a very short exploration of the local geology.  I nipped off at one point to buy some cherries from a stall, and when I rejoined the group they were all staring at the beach.  I could see a tern or to. And I liked these contrasting grey textures.  Only on looking more closely did I see that some of the stones were in fact terns, roseate terns I was informed. From here we were taken just a very short distance westwards, and deposited to walk along the old coastal road (closed to traffic) for about a mile.

I really would not have cared to have driven along that old road!

I really enjoyed this walk.  It was easy walking (as had the levada been), the sun was now out, and the plants growing on the vertical cliff wall were spectacular.  Two of us were ahead of the others, so we were the first to venture in to this tunnel, which we could see was dripping wet for the first and last several metres.  It was fun, once emerged from it, to see the others noticing the ‘hazard’ and then venturing in. 

Indian/Macaronesian Red Admiral

Speckled wood

From here we were taken via Seixal to Châo da Ribeira, where there were picnic benches. The sun had gone in again, and it was again a little chilly.  We were joined by 5 feral cats and a kitten, all very wary, but won over by gifts of ham and cheese.   From here we went for a short walk in the laurisilva, laurel forest, of which Madeira has the one of the few surviving remnants in ‘Europe’.  It once flourished around the Mediterranean, but the Ice Ages did for it nearly everywhere there. Our botanist leader was very excited at being in this rich and rare spot.  Lunch had been late, and we were running later.  We made just one more stop on the way back to the hotel, to see the rare Madeiran saxifrage.  Here it is: and here are some of us looking at it.  Another lovely dinner in a Funchal restaurant, another fitness session back up to the hotel. Then watching a fireworks display taking place back down in the harbour, an event which the town of Funchal lays on every Saturday evening in June.

 

Madeira Revisited 4

Tags

Baia d'Abra, Bonita da Madeira, cochineal, Funchal, Madeira, Ponta da Garajau, Sâo Lourenço

Madeira Revisited 4. A very different landscape on Friday. We were at the far eastern tail of the island, on the Sâo Lourenço peninsula, dry and arid and very windy. The usual pattern: a there and back walk, botanists behind, better walkers in front, me taking pictures of flowers and views, and many walkers of many nationalities. Lots of up and down, but not as much as the day before.

Looking south. The smudges in the sea are a fish farm.

More layers of volcanic ejecta

The sea to the north

Unfortunately I was beaten after an hour or so. By the wind.  Not having had full sensation in my feet for a couple of years now, passing over a high and very exposed spot, unbalanced by camera and binoculars round my neck, and wearing a wide brimmed sunhat, I was actually terrified that I would be blown over by a gusts of the (pleasantly warm) wind onto the hard stony ground.  Very reluctantly I had to turn back and reach a more sheltered spot, where I sat for a while. 

Maximum zoom on the fish farm and a small boat tending it

After a bit, I moved further towards the car park, and found an almost suitable boulder on which to sit. For a long while.  I confess that I did get a little bored, but amused myself taking more photos. And a video.

 

I was on a mini peninsula at the side of a bay, the Baia d’Abra.  The other side of the bay was a long way off, and it was impossible to make individual people out.  But I suspected that some people sitting down way across above the multi-coloured cliff were a few of my companions, so I took a photo on maximum zoom, and enlarged it as much as I could in my camera. (I really was quite bored by now! There was nowhere to lie down and have a snooze, nor was it warm enough.) I could indeed identify people from our party.  I assumed they were sitting to have their lunch (which I took to as a cue to have my own) but I learned later they had been birdwatching and had seen, among other things, canary and rock sparrow. Oh well, I had watched grasshoppers … and a rather elegant wooden tourist boat, the Bonita da Madeira, following the coastline of the bay. Together once more, we went back along the south coast towards Funchal, and stopped at Ponta da Garajau, for liquid refreshment and what was intended to be a further walk down a cliff path to find a particular plant. However, the authorities had roped it off as too dangerous.  This did not stop our leader venturing just a few metres into it to collect this insect from a cactus. He then passed it to  a volunteer who agreed to crush it in her palm. This was the cochineal insect, much prized as a very expensive trading item centuries ago, and which set me off singing to myself an extract from a madrigal by Thomas Weelkes (1575-1623), Thule, the period of cosmography. This includes the line, ‘The Andalusian merchant, that returns laden with cochineal and China dishes,…’.

Another delicious meal in a downtown Funchal restaurant, and the obligatory exercise afterwards (taxis were available for those who wished) ended the day.

Madeira Revisited 3

Tags

Funchal, Madeira, Pico d'Arieiro, Pico Rivo, Porto da Cruz

Madeira Revisited 3.  We were above the clouds again on the Thursday, quite near to where we had been the previous day, but after a much longer drive because of a road closure.  We were driven to a pretty high spot, and thereafter would walk, theoretically to the top of Pico Ruivo (1862 metres/1608 feet) which was not much higher, except that there was a great deal of up and down, (a very great deal of up and down), on the way. I left the keen botanists behind, and better walkers than I went ahead of me.  I just took my time, and, as the previous day, amused myself taking photos of plants and views.

Near the beginning of the walk, looking south

Looking north-west

Looking north, over to the radar station on Pico d’Arieiro where we had been the previous day. So near yet so far. It was walkable along a rather hazardous footpath, and we saw people on it.

Looking back after a short while to the car park

The weather was ideal for walking, not too hot, with a little breeze. Much, but not all, of the path was paved, like this.

Could a path be more inviting…?

lined with buttercuppy plants,

… and dandeliony plants?

We had been told that the last part, to the top of the Pico, was just 400 steps. The white splodge at the upper right of this picture is a refuge at the bottom of those last 400 steps. After quite a lot of walking I had admitted to myself that there was no way I was going to inflict that last stage on myself, and indeed that I would probably turn round well before it.  In fact I did make it to the refuge, but once there was not in the least enticed by the thought of being able to see a very rare plant (viola paradoxa, a yellow violet, an oxymoron to me!) at the top, or by the encouragement of my companions to attempt it. 

A guide at the refuge to some of the plants in the area. I can’t see my buttercuppy or dandeliony plants there – probably too common – but the viola paradoxa is there).

On the way back

I ate my lunch at this halt, pleased to find that it was not totally occupied by others already. Given that doing the walk were many people of many nationalities – German, then French, then Portuguese in my estimation far outnumbering British people – I was pleased to have a bench to myself.

The cloud cleared to the north of the island …

but not to the north, which is not how it’s meant to be!

We moved on in the early afternoon to Porto da Cruz, on the north coast, where I had been on my previous visit to Madeira, so I didn’t take many photos.  While there we were able to visit a sugar cane processing factory, new to me,to have a wander around the coastline, and to admire the geology.  I hadn’t really twigged before that volcanic rock could be sedimentary, but of course these lines are formed by layer upon layer of volcanic ash and other spewings.

A cool drink (I took the drink based on local sugar cane rum, poncha,) in the shade at a local café made a nice end to our outing, and another good evening meal at a Funchal restaurant, followed by a vertical hike back to our hotel, rounded off the day nicely.

Madeira Revisited 2

Tags

Balcoes, Echium candicans, Fringilla coelebs maderensis, Funchal, levada, Madeira, Madeiran chaffich, maderensis, Pico d'Arieiro, Pride of Madeira, Ribeiro Frio

Madeira Revisited 2.  Wednesday 6th June. On my previous visit we had covered a lot of ground, and it was inevitable that this time I would repeat some places.  But this was no problem, as the nature and extent of the visits were very different. On this and four of the following five days (the fifth was free) our focus was nature, and since there seemed sadly not to be many butterflies or a great variety of birds, it was plants and their flowers which were the main interest, so it was a good thing that our principal guide, Martin, was a superb botanist. That said, I had not a hope of retaining the English names – where there were such – let alone the Latin ones which  tripped off his tongue, so I just enjoyed myself taking hundreds – literally – of photos, from which to choose a few for here, of the plants and the views. (Many of the species had ‘maderensis’, Madeiran, in their names.)Each morning the minibuses picked us up at 9 a.m. for the day’s touring. I had indeed been to our first stop, the Pico do Arieiro, pretty well due north of Funchal, halfway between north and south coasts. As it is 1818 metres, nearly 6000 feet, high, the third highest peak on the island, I was pleased the buses took us all the way there, and also that, as before, while we had driven through cloud, we were well above it by now, and indeed this time it cleared while we were there. Previously, we had hung around the top by the radar station and the café/shop centre, admiring the wonderful views.  This time we walked among them along a ridge for an hour or so, learning about the plants.

Echium candicans, ‘Pride of Madeira’.

All the rock is of volcanic origin of course

Our next stop, nearby, was also familiar, Ribeiro Frio, but this time, whereas it had been cold and misty before, the sun was out for most of the time, but not too hot, ideal for walking.

This fungus, Martin explained, is pretty rare because it will only grow on this particular tree, which is endemic to Madeira.

Indeed, on the previous occasion I had noticed that there were ‘levada’ walks from that place, known for its trout farms, and I was pleased to have the opportunity this time to follow them up. We did two, one before our picnic lunch and one after. The first took us to a viewpoint at Balcóes.  I took all these following photos within ten minutes of each other and from the same spot!

Looking down

Looking across

Looking back

Looking up

Looking down and leaning sideways

After lunch, a little way from Balcóes,I struck out on my own, as did most people, leaving the very keen botanists with Martin, along a broad levada walk, again from Ribeiro Frio.  Levadas are watercourses built from the 15th to the 20th centuries to transfer water from the much wetter north of the island to the dry south. They now also provide walking paths, some narrow, crumbling and dangerous, some very broad, with only imperceptible inclines.

Marsh orchid

A soft drink at the end at a café back in Ribeiro Frio was well-deserved, and provided us with entertainment from Madeiran chaffinches like this one (which has ‘maderensis’ in its Latin name). After a rest at out hotel, we walked down to town for a meal in one of the dozens of restaurants in the Rua de Santa Maria, where you take your liberty in your hands if you haven’t already a booking (we had) or at least a target firmly in mind!

 

Madeira Revisited 1

Tags

Funchal, Madeira, Naturetrek, Residencial Pina, Restaurante dos Combatentes

Madeira Revisited 1. When I went for the first time to the island of Madeira in November 2016 (posts Madeira 1 to Madeira 8), although I had been a little disappointed in certain respects, or perhaps because of that, I really wanted to return to see the wilder parts of the island. So I booked three back-to-back trips, each with a different focus, with Naturetrek for this month.  The middle one did not attract sufficient numbers, so was cancelled, so I decided only to do the first and longest one, called ‘The Floating Garden’.

Madeira is a small island, about the size of the Isle of Wight, but it has a number of different ecologies, all based on the volcanic geology that made the island a very recent 7 million years ago.

We were 15 with two leaders, and travelled around – when not on foot within the capital, Funchal, in two minibuses. But this first day, once we had settled in to our very nice hotel, the Residencial Pina,  – noting that it was going to be a steep hike up from the waterfront – and had a bite of lunch, we set off for an exploration of the centre of the town.

We reckoned that this was probably an abandoned school building

The clothing is misleading. The weather was quite mild. The steepness of the road is not misleading!

Our botanist guide was giving us the names of all the trees and plants we saw. My brain couldn’t cope!

The trees are called ‘Pride of Bolivia’, Tipuana tipu

Once at the municipal gardens I decided to peel off and do my own thing. 

The 1982 statue celebrates the octocentenary of St Francis of Assisi’s birth in 1182 – three centuries before the island had been (re)discovered by the Portuguese. Brugmansia flowers.

The tree was in the street, not the gardens. The black and white building materials are typical.

Detail of tree

It was nice to be back in roads I recognised, though I didn’t stay very long, and made my way back up to the hotel.

I learned in due course that the hotel was about 70 metres from sea level.

The view from my balcony

We walked down again in the evening, after a briefing on our next day’s activities, and ate at the very good (all the restaurants we ate at were very good, though some were not as good as this one at handling our need for separate bills) Restaurante dos Combatantes, right by the municipal gardens. Some returned by taxi, and some of us walked back up.  I could see I was going to be much fitter by the end of the seven days!

 

RHS Rosemoor

Tags

RHS, Rosemoor, roses

I took up bridge some 18 months ago. And as a result found myself at RHS Rosemoor, North Devon, yesterday, with four new friends. Strange how things work.

Anyway, I took dozens and dozens of photos, and had a very difficult time reducing them even to the large number here, many more than I would normally put in one post. In fact I resisted taking photos to begin with, but I knew that one regular reader adores astrantia, so this, seen quite early on, was for him. That set the rot in, and I was clicking away once we got to the Queen Mother rose garden, and I didn’t stop for the rest of the day. 

There were not just roses in the rose gardens.

The shrub rose garden came next.  There we took a rest.

Gill, Trisha, Daphne, Venetia, Beth

I would have died happy after that, but there was much, much more to see.I tried to comfort this poor old scarecrow.We did sit discreetly observing a wedding party at one point, though of course I did not take any photos of it. However five females had a great time airing their views on the wedding garb, of which, on the whole, we approved. Finally, and to finish on a rose theme, here is one from my own garden of which I’m particularly fond.  Even this I can’t name because it was here before I arrived.