Sicily 1: Edoné

Tags

Catania, Edoné, Francesca Marchese, Geoff Andrews, Graniti, Sicilian food, Sicily, Sicily Unlimited

Edoné. I’d last been to Sicily in 1975, and had longed to go back again ever since.  At last I had the chance, when I booked on to Geoff Andrews’ Sicily Unlimited trip, to spend a week at Edoné (stress on the last syllable), about an hour’s drive north west of Catania, studying a few aspects of Sicilian culture, with appropriate visits.  Geoff organised, and Francesca Marchese, a Sicilian journalist (mainly TV), now living and working freelance in London, was our local guide.

We – a group of just four people – arrived late morning on Thursday, 4th April, and spent the rest of the day quietly settling in, exploring Edoné and getting to know each other.

The building on the hill is another holiday residence

Alfresco eating location

I was very pleased with my room, and its very modern bathroom.

Entrance

View from

Once unpacked, I made the acquaintance of some of Edoné’s personnel.

Enzo in his kitchen

Nerina

 

Luna

I only ever saw one species of lizard, very green with an amazingly long tail.

We had had a delicious lunch, and soon realised that superb food was to be a hallmark of the week.  This is the dining room, and the antipasti at dinner.  (While I was tempted to, I did not take a photo of every dish we were served during the week.)The next day was Good Friday.  A nature walk and a most extraordinary Good Friday procession will be the subject of the next two posts.

 

Madeira 7

Tags

Baia d'Abra, Brocken's Spectre, Cristian Rinaldo Airport, elephant, Faial, Funchal Airport, Glory, Hibiscus, Islas Desertas, levada, Machico, Madeira, Monk Seals, Pico d'Arieiro, Ponta da Sao Laurenco, porta da Cruz, Radar station, Ribeiro Frio, Santana, trout farm, Wordpress

Madeira 7. Saturday 19th November.  A grand tour of the East of the island, certainly my favourite organised day.

We set off along the new roads towards and past the airport, which has recently had it runway extended – by building over the sea.  I managed to get a shot of how it works as we whizzed past.

We were soon passing Machico, said by Lina to be the second largest town on the island, Wikipedia says third.  Whatever – at some 22,000 its population is only about 8% of that of Funchal.  It does boast one of only two yellow sandy beaches in Madeira – sand imported  since the island only produces black volcanic stuff.

On to the easternmost accessible part of the island, the Ponta de Sâo Laurenço and the Baia d’Abra.

Looking back westwards

Looking eastwards. I love the way the spray frames the cliff.

For the second time in the week we observed a photoshoot going on. Madeira’s a good wheeze!The tour continued.

Porta da Cruz

Faial

 

Hibiscus, Santana

There used to be many houses like this all over the island. These at Santana are kept for tourism purposes

Cats just love drinking anywhere but their bowls.  Is this a mini levada I wonder?

After lunch in a very nice restaurant back near Faial, I had a little wander,

Faial village

before we moved on to Ribeiro Frio, where the main point of interest is a trout farm – though it looked as if there was some great walking to be had from there as well.

It was grey and overcast at this last stop, so as we then climbed and climbed to the Pico D’Arieiro we feared that there would be no views because of the cloud cover.  No need to have worried.

Supermoon?

No, a military radar station

Remember I said something previously about no elephants on Madeira?

 

It was fabulous, above the clouds

But this was the best of all.  A ‘glory’! A phenomenon that can occur when you have the sun behind you and cloud below you. Amazing and wonderful, (and much clearer than it seems in this photo, as I think the camera probably had problems focussing on the cloud).  There was in fact a very clear second rainbow around the first.  The whole thing was just spectacular. (It may or may not have been a Brocken’s Spectre, when you see your own silhouette against the rainbow, but I think that in that case your silhouette is dead centre.  I think this was the shadow of a radio mast which was behind me and slightly to my right.)

(Here I am looking at it – photo again by Charlie.)

Yes, it was near a precipitous edge, but not as close as it appears.

On the way back, this time we stopped near Machico, and got a better view of the town, and of the extreme tip of the island where we had been in the morning.  And of the artificial sandy beach.

These are the Islas Desertas, an uninhabited nature reserve, but full of lots of wildlife, particularly birds and monk seals, and you can go there on a trip.  I might, next time.

Finally, back past that airport, where I snatched these two photos through the windows of the coach.

We were to take off over that runway two days later!

 

Nothing was laid on for the last day. But I had plans…

West Yorkshire

Tags

camomile lawn, cricket, Derbyshire Dales, East Riddlesdon Hall, Mytholmroyd, National Trust, Olympic Games, pomander, rag rugs, Roberts Park, Shipley, Shipley Glen Cable Tramway, Shipley Moor, Stafford, Yorkshire

Least said, soonest mended about last Friday, August 19th.  Prevented in March by ill-health from visiting friends in and on the way to Yorkshire, I had arranged to retrieve the situation last weekend.  What should have been five hours’ driving time turned out to be eight hours’.  Sheer volume of holiday traffic, accidents, road works, I heard the lot on my car radio’s traffic alerts.

Anyway, it was lovely to arrive at last at Hazel and John’s house in Shipley, where they had kindly waited the evening meal despite my request that they didn’t, and we started catching up on news.  I was at primary and secondary school with Hazel a very, very long time ago, and each of us has spent long periods living abroad.  Hazel has daughters and grandchildren in Canada, and they are at charmingly interesting ages.

Saturday morning I drove over via some spectacular scenery to Mytholmroyd.  These pictures do only scant justice due to poor weather and difficulty finding places to stop the car.I spent a couple of hours with my very old  – in both senses and he won’t mind my saying so – friend Brian, and also met Marley for the first time.  Here they are.In the afternoon, back in Shipley, I was only too pleased to succumb to the rain and stay in.  Moreover, I have never found the Olympic Games as interesting as I have this year, and I was pleased to find that H and J were also happy to have the TV on to watch some of the penultimate day’s activity.

The following day we made up for our idleness.  I’m always pleased to use my life membership of the National Trust, and East Riddlesden Hall is only a very short distance from Shipley.Apologies for the quality of some of the following photos.  I had forgotten to pack my camera for the weekend, so these were taken on my tablet, which is fine in good light, but in the dim light inside the house it was struggling at times.

John trying his hand at rag rug-making

Hazel examining one of the many old cures scattered around the place.

Yes, that does say ‘Dead Toad’.  Another said ‘Vulpine (grated fox). Rub on chest to cure a cold’

Learning about pomanders

Congratulating ourselves on dodging the showers, we wandered around outside to admire the structure of the building and the gardens.

Camomile lawn in the making

After lunch we drove to Shipley Moor, and walked down the side of the tramway, the only remaining part of the old pleasure gardens.  Into the park,

where we were able to enjoy a variety of traditional municipal and other activities.

Here’s a British tradition that might have died in Bradford but for the town’s Asian immigrants

No steep walk back up to the car for us. We took the tramway.  I felt utterly ashamed of myself when I enquired about concessionary prices, so paying just 50p for each of us, so was very pleased when John pointed out a collection box for the voluntary body that runs the trip. I posted the balance between that fare and the pre-retirement age adult rate!

A lovely drive back via another very elevated beauty spot.

Monday morning, time to return home south, via Stafford to have lunch with my former work colleague Ellie. I decided to avoid the motorways, at least for this first half of the journey home, and was quite mind-blown at the grandeur of the Derbyshire Dales, just frustrated that it impossible to record it in the very thick drizzle.  

The sheep didn’t seem bothered though.

Dyrham Park

Tags

Brathwayt, Dyrham Park, Henry the cat, National Trust, pond-dipping

The date was fixed ages go, so my friend Sue and I were delighted when the weather earlier this week turned out to be wonderful for our planned visit to the National Trust property at Dyrham Park, South Gloucestershire.

From the car park it is a 15-minute amble down through parkland to the house, so we were very pleased to learn that later in the day a bus would bring us back up if we wished. Deferring the pleasure of a coffee, we turned aside to visit the conservatory.Once refreshed, we just wandered around taking in the general picture.We did think this rather spoiled things,until we saw that why it was there.  We learned later that Tim, head gardener, would spend his entire life cutting these hedges if he could get away with it.We continued to wander and saw animate creatures as well as plants.At noon we joined a small group led by an excellent volunteer for a guided tour round the gardens. We also learned about the development of the property by William Brathwayt at the turn of the 18th century.  It has been very little altered since then, apart from some Victorian improvements to domestic offices. When the National Trust took it over in 1956 it was in a very deliapidated state. The Trust has been restoring the gardens and grounds to the spirit of their original conception ever since.

Photo opportunities galore of plants near…and very near, with…

and without insects on them.After lunch, we discovered nooks and crannies, and learned that Henry, the cat we had seen earlier and saw again now, lived in a flat on the first floor of this courtyard, climbing up the vine to get in his window.We visited the church,

and wandered a bit more.Then Sue decided to take it easy while I went on another guided tour, of the woodland terraces.  Less photogenic this time, but it was interesting to hear, from the same volunteer as had led the morning tour, the story of their development, decline, and current restoration.

Henry was everywhere. Now which T S Eliot feline does he resemble…?

There was no time to visit the house.  That must be for another time, at perhaps a different time of year, in order to enjoy the gardens at another season.

 

Return to Aigas 7

Tags

Aigas, Aigas Wildcat Project, Magnus House, Wasp nest

Wednesday was a completely different sort of day.  Firstly, we got up incredibly early to leave for Kessock Bridge where we hoped to see otters.  This is what we saw, in my case from the relative comfort of the bus:

Canada geese

No otters.  We felt we had earned the breakfast we returned to.

For the rest of the morning we listened to a couple of talks, on the wildcat project, and moths, each fascinating.  The braver souls  – it was still raining, though not as hard – went out into the grounds to indulge in a bit of pond-dipping.  I’m afraid I chickened out, being very ill-equipped for bad weather.

The afternoon was free to spend exploring where we were living for the week rather more than we’d been able to hitherto.  (Some joined a small group going a very long way, for a very small chance of seeing a ring ouzel or two.  Sadly they had as much luck as we had had in the morning over otters.)

I did indeed spend a lot of time outside exploring Aigas – it had stopped raining by now, and here is a selection of the pictures I took then and at other times during the week, both indoors and outdoors.

My room

That’s the entrance to an old ice house seen though one window

My lodge

Ruth showing us where we’re going that day

First meal

The sitting room

The dining room, shortly to be laid out for a buffet lunch

A hundred-year-old wasp’s nest

Our hostess is a very talented lady

The library and overflow dining room

The gallery above the dining hall

The sitting room

The Magnus House

From the Tower Hide

No chance of seeing the wild cats!

As well as feeding us splendidly, Lady Lister-Kaye is entirely responsible for the garden

It had started raining again before I was safely back in the house.

 

Return to Aigas 2

Tags

Aigas, Aigas Field Centre, bronze age huts, Eurasian Beaver, Golden eagle, house martin, iron age fort, John LIster-Kaye, Magnus House, Magnus Magnusson, Meadow pipit, pine marten, Round-leaved sundew, wild cat, wild cat breeding programme

I forgot to say – because I had no photo to remind me – that we had this morning a few seconds’ glimpse of a juvenile golden eagle.  Quite a thrill, if all too brief as it disappeared into the cloud at the top of the mountain.

This afternoon we spent being introduced to the immediate territory that goes with Aigas House.  First of all we had a briefing from seasonal ranger Ben at the front of the house, during which we were entertained by the industrious and fearless house martin parents who were feeding young just over the doorway.

Then we walked up to the Magnus House, the educational space named after, and opened just after the death of, Magnus Magnusson, a good friend of naturalist Sir John Lister-Kaye, who, with his wife, Lucy, and his son, Warwick, runs the Aigas Field Centre.  On the way, we noticed, not for the first or the last time, that in Inverness-shire, in mid-June, the bluebells were still in flower.

Boris

Inside we found Boris, the male beaver, who, with his mate Lily, successfully bred for several years as part of an experimental reintroduction scheme. (Pending governmental decision, this scheme is now in abeyance.)  Several of the offspring have been dispersed elsewhere, but Lily and some of her cubs are still seen occasionally on Aigas Loch, which we next visited.

We saw several signs of beaver activity, including the building of accommodation more to their taste than the artificial lodge which was first provided for them.

One of my favourite photos from the whole week

Round-leaved sundew, insectivorous plant

I think this was a meadow pipit

Yes, I know you see chaffinches everywhere

When three-quarters of the way round the loch, we diverted upwards to some heathland, to the location of some bronze age huts.  We had no time to go even further upward to the site of an iron age fort.

There was broom and/or gorse nearly everywhere we went

On the way down we were told a little about the wild cat breeding programme of which the Centre is part.  In due course, in a few more generations, it is hoped that some kittens may be reintroduced into the wild, well away from where any domestic cat can be found, in order to ensure the purity of the genetic stock.

Apart from the two people who look after the cats, no-one is allowed to visit the cats. so that they do not become habituated to humans. They must remain truly wild.  Frustrating to be so near and not see, but at the same time a privilege even to be near the project.

Tanzania 6

Tags

black kite, black rhino, black-backed jackal, buffalo, elephant, flamingo, great white pelican, hippo, Kori bustard, lesser flamingo, lioness, Ngorogoro, Ngorogoro Crater, rhino, Tanzania, Tarangire, Thomson's gazelle, weaver bird, zebra

We moved on, and I was thrilled now to see flamingos taking off from the lake,

rising higher and higher and higher.  I was mindful of a documentary I had seen on TV about some Great White Pelicans taking off daily from a lake with no fish, using thermals to rise over some mountains to get to another lake where the food was plentiful.

As I followed these flamingos with my eyes, I seemed to me that they were doing the same thing, for whatever reason, and I watched them fly off from the crater and over its rim.  Others more interested in photographic opportunities than wildlife behaviour  did not get as excited as I was.

Kori bustard, display

Black-backed jackal

We found ourselves in an area with many lionesses – and many jeeps.  The former just ignored the latter except when they had to go round them.  Reactions of other wildlife were mixed.  Some seemed to realise that the felines were not hunting, but were just in a quest for water. Others – the Thomson’s gazelles perhaps – maybe could not even see the danger.  Truly hunting lions would not have made themselves so obvious.

We were all excited to see in the distance a black rhino, something we could certainly not have counted on.

Black rhino. The name has nothing to do with the colour.

Black-backed jackal

To the ‘Hippo Pool’ where some of us were fortunate enough to find some shade and a place to sit to have our lunch, amused by two kinds of weaver birds.  We were advised to keep our food well covered or it might be snatched by black kites.

Hippo pool

Two kinds of weaver birds

Black kite

We started to climb – in our jeeps – out of the crater after lunch, to make our way to our next Park, stopping only to pay tribute to those  who over the years had lost their lives in the service of wildlife, killed in the main not by animals but by poachers.

Climbing up the side of the crater

At the top

A tribute to those who have lost their lives in defence of the area’s wildlife

 

(Coming: Tarangire National Park)

Tanzania 4

Tags

Cokes hartebeest, giraffe, Grantj's gazelle, hornbill, Hyena, Impala, lion cub, marabou stork, Ndutu, Shifting Sands, Tanzania, Thomson's gazelle, Von der Decken's hornbill, White stork, Wildebeest, zebra

The afternoon’s safari

Marabou storks

Thomson’s gazelle (with horizontal black stripe), Grant’s gazelle (without) and Impala (Tawny colour)

included observing how difficult it is for giraffes to drink,

How do giraffes drink? Inelegantly

Von der Decken’s hornbill

a herd of wildebeest and zebras migrating firstly alongside us and then crossing our path, many of the zebras stopping to drink, though not the wildebeest,

Cokes hartebeest

and an enchanting time again, as night fell, with some lions.  It took some while for us to realise just how many there were in the heap and in the bushes, but in the end we counted seven cubs and three lionesses.  A delightful moment was when one of the latter just went and lay down on top of the heap of cubs.

The next day, Monday 15th February, meant it was time to leave Ndutu and move on, or rather to retrace our path.  This involved a much sunnier drive across the plain than when we arrived, and some great wildlife moments: a spotted hyena washing its meat, dozens of white storks at a watering hole and wheeling in the sky (sorry, no decent picture of that), and baby Thomson’s gazelle and wildebeest.

White storks coming in to land

We also stopped at ‘Shifting Sands’, an isolated sand dune that moves under the effect of the wind, a most curious phenomenon.  Shortly afterwards we were out of the Park.

(Soon: Ngorogoro Crater)

Tanzania 3

Tags

African white-backed vulture, Dik dik, Lion, lion cub, lioness, marabou stork, Ndutu, Tanzania, terrapin

A shorter post today, but with our best lion experience yet.

Once again, on Sunday, 14th February, we set off in the very early morning.  We soon came across a mother with older cubs, much more playful than previously, and, with no other jeeps around hooray, we just enjoyed their company as they – some of them anyway, others, of what seemed to be four cubs in the greenery, just couldn’t find the courage – went up and down a tree just metres away from us, honing their climbing skills. All seemed happy to wander round and round our two jeeps, to our delight.

After 90 minutes or so we moved off to a dead tree we could see in the distance, where an older lioness obliging posed for us.

We took breakfast by the side of a nearby lake.

Too small to identify?

Marabou storks and African white-backed vultures

Squabbling over prey

Late morning went back to see what ‘our’ lions were doing.  No surprise there, especially given the heat of midday.

Dik dik

(Awaiting identification)

Back to the lodge for lunch in the dining room, which typically had no windows, followed by a siesta for some in the comfortable bedrooms.

Dining room

Bedroom

(To be continued)

Tanzania 2

Tags

Blacksmith plover, cape teal, cheetah, Dik dik, dung beetle, eagle, giraffe, grey-crowned crane, hoopoe, Lion, long-crested eagle, Ndutu, northern white-crowned shrike, secretary bird, shrike, side-necked terrapin, Tanzania, Thomson's gazelle, three-banded plover, vulture, Wildebeest

After lunch, a short wander round the grounds, observing this notice

Board near our accommodation at the lodge

and this Dik dik

No danger, though, from this,

and a rest, it was time for another trip out in the jeeps.

Cheetah

Masai giraffe

Dung beetles. The dung is the size of a tennis ball.

 

Impressed by the antics of the dung beetles, I made a video:

Vultures like being near lions, hoping to help clear up after a kill. We just liked being near lions for sheer pleasure, in this case observing adult females and cubs doing nothing very much.

Vultures in weaver bird’s tree

Just too cute or what?

Lions spend most of their day sleeping

We’d now arrived at Saturday, 13th February.

Sunrise over the plain

Lots of lions again today, but no ‘action’, despite much soliciting by the females.  We stuck around them for much of the day, breaking for breakfast after a couple of hours,

Secretary birds

Long-crested eagle

Grey-crowned crane, and missis

Northern white-crowned shrike

expecting action of some sort when another male hove into view,

 

(but it turned out they were brothers),

Cape teal

Blacksmith plovers

We went back to the Lodge for lunch and a rest from the fierce sun of the middle hours of the day. Later we returned to the marshy area to see what was happening.

Thomson’s gazelle

Side-necked terrapin

Three-banded plover

Hoopoe

Juvenile tawny eagle

Long-crested eagle

Grey-crowned crane

But all the lions wanted to do was to lounge around, at least until the sun was going down (around 6 pm) and we had to be away. They are entirely unfazed by human presence, though it would not be advisable to get out of the jeep.

(To be continued)