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.

 

Toulouse and Tarn 8

Tags

Fronton, plane tree, Tarn, Villemur-sur-Tarn

Wednesday, Final scenic drive. It was with very mixed feelings that I woke this morning. Was I actually keen to get home?  My flight back to Bristol was late afternoon, and the car had to be returned by 2.30. The weather promised to be rather better, and I could hope not to have to use the broken umbrella, even to see a little blue sky. It would only have taken me under an hour to get back from Lisle-sur-Tarn to Toulouse airport on main roads, so planned out a route via country roads and villages.  Not as spectacular as I had seen on Monday, as the geology was less dramatic, but pleasant – and it would have been even more pleasant had I in fact seen any blue sky. At least there was no rain. Taking the quiet roads enabled me to see and stop at more wildflower-studded meadows,  and pretty – if forlorn – houses. This part of France maintains many of the plane trees lining roads, originally designed to shade those walking or driving carts along them.  (Other places blame them for car accidents and have ripped them out.) I had never before seen oaks serving the same purpose.  Coffee time, and I stopped at a town called Villemur-sur-Tarn.  No problem in parking here, though I didn’t go right into the centre, but stopped along an embankment of the Tarn.  When I saw this as I walked into the centre, I did wonder if I should have left my phone number in the windscreen! It was reassuring shortly afterwards to find out that the last time that the flooding had come so high was in 1766. The more modern notice must have been for the underground car park I had passed.

Further along the embankment, a very full information panel told me that there had been hydroelectricity here as well, from 1896, and that the factory opposite had made cereal foodstuffs until quite recently. But what’s happened to the celebrated French pavement café?  I could find absolutely nowhere, inside or outside, to have a drink! Even the Café de l’Hôtel de Ville was empty, not just of people but of furniture! Fortunately I had water in the car.

I still had quite a way to go, but didn’t take many more photographs. 

An orchid I think, but I can’t identify it.

Quite near to the airport I went through another town well-known for its region’s wines, Fronton, and saw an enormous co-operative, but couldn’t stop to record it, just this token one of vines.  (A bit irksome to read in that link that the area is known for its dry heat.)I hadn’t seen many poppies, which like disturbed ground, at all, so was very pleased, when driving around a town with a huge gravel works, to see these on a recently constructed bank. From now on I was concentrating on getting to the car hire depot on time, and on finding fuel to be able to return the car with a full tank.  At the airport it was with great satisfaction that I abandoned my poor, spoke-broken umbrella to a bin!

‘Did you have a good holiday?’ I have been asked since.  Hmm. Well, it wasn’t exactly what I’d planned, the highlights being cultural rather than rural, and I did feel deprived. It was pleasing to find that not only the lovely views (obviously) but also the lovely fields of wildflowers (not such a certainty) were still there. It would have been great to enjoy them in the ‘normal’ spring weather for that part of the world at this time of year.  Did I enjoy my holiday?  Yes, overall I did – but I was very glad to have included Toulouse in my plans! And that I now have an organised nature trip to Madeira to look forward to…

PS.  I did buy 100 grams of chocolates from that chocolate shop next to my hotel in Toulouse, and they only make very small ones.  So, at one a day, and back now a fortnight, I am looking forward to having the very last one with coffee after my meal this evening.

USA 2018 (10), Mud pots and fumaroles

Tags

Bison, Bombadier, Fountain Paint Pot, fumarole, geyser, hot spring, hydrogen sulfide, hydrogen sulphide, Lower Geyser Basin, Madison Information Station, Mud pot, Old Faithful, red-breasted nuthatch, snow coach, Yellowstone, Yellowstone National Park

USA 2018 (10), Mud pots and fumaroles. Our next stop for a walk in Yellowstone National Park, this Monday, 19th February, was at the Lower Geyser Basin.

Dead lodge pole pines, with petrified bases. They have absorbed the prevailing silica material through their roots, and ‘frozen’.

More evidence that bison like warm water

Here we learned more from Drew about hot springs, fumaroles, and mud pots, having already learned about geysers, such as Old Faithful. We saw for ourselves how vegetation and even small birds could thrive in well below freezing ambient temperatures. At 7.30 this morning, it had been minus 2º Fahrenheit, which sounds even colder in Celsius – minus 19º.  Photos can show the water vapour/steam – but not the rotten eggs smell of hydrogen sulphide, H2S, (“very poisonous, corrosive, and flammable” – Wikipedia) which invaded the nostrils from time to time, and had done the previous day also.

 

Red-breasted nuthatch, at the edge of the field of mud pots.

Regaining our yellow snowcoaches, we found one of those dark red Bombadiers, the precursors of the modern vehicles we were travelling in. Onwards and northwards.

Snowmobiles approaching, and in the distance, the northern edge of the most recent (640,000 years ago) Lava Creek caldera

 

This is my very favourite bison portrait

Not a human footprint in sight

After a short while we reached our next warming hut, Madison Information Station I think, where we took lunch (in the company of a load of snowmobilists) – and were visited by a coyote.

  I saw no-one give him/her anything to eat!

 

Buckinghamshire 4

Tags

Chilterns, Cushion calamint, Forestry Commission, Harriet Mead, Lady's bedstraw, red kite, Somerset Rural Life Museum, Tom Hill, Wayfaring tree, Wendover, Wendover Woods

Buckinghamshire 4.  The last day of my visit to friends was intended to be very different, a quiet walk in Wendover Woods (Forestry Commission) in the Chiltern Hills. On the way, we stopped for a coffee in Wendover.

Outside an art gallery there was a sculpture which reminded me of that by Harriet Mead which I had seen at the Somerset Rural Life Museum in June, but after a little research I think it may be by Tom Hill, who specialises in sculpting using horseshoes.

We were planning for a quiet Monday walk, but when we got to the woods, and took a while to park because of all the crowds, we were a little apprehensive.  No need to worry.  The vast majority of people remained around the café and children’s play area.

We scarcely saw a soul in fact. We took the ‘Firecrest Trail’, 4.5.km/2.8 miles, and its official description proved to be accurate, ‘surfaced tracks and unsurfaced woodland paths… a great way to explore different habitats.’

 

Chalk soil and flints, underfoot for some of the time

 

There were plenty of wildflowers to be seen.  (These identifications are subject to any suggested corrections.)

 

Cushion calamint, clinopodium vulgare.  The leaves certainly had a minty smell

Lady’s bedstraw, Galium verum

Wayfaring tree, viburnum lantana  (I’m least sure of this one)

A convenient bench about two-thirds of the way round enabled us to rest and debate the  patterns before us, especially that of the broad field in the middle distance.We knew we were nearing the hub once more when we passed Go Ape – and were not tempted to join in. (Unlike some I know – sorry, private joke.) 

Despite the large numbers of visitors, lunch at the café was peaceful in the open air.

After all those activities, my visit finished with a quiet afternoon in the garden,  where I was able to get some better pictures of red kites.

Thank you, Geoff and Jackie, for a lovely break.

Buckinghamshire 3

Tags

iron lung, Lord Nuffield, Morris Motors, National Trust, Nuffield Foundation, Nuffield Place, Oxford colleges, Wolseley

The final National Trust property we visited was Nuffield Place, the surprisingly modest – in the circumstances – house built by William Morris, founder of Morris Motors in Oxford, later to become Lord Nuffield.  Unsurprisingly, we saw a few cars.

Lady Nuffield’s Wolseley

We wandered in the gardens.We saw a small shed containing this iron lung. Lord Nuffield gave 5000 of them, made at his factory in Cowley, to hospitals throughout the British Empire.  £12,000,000 was an awful lot of money in the 1930s.

 

We went into the house. 

The robes worn by Lord and Lady Nuffield at the 1937 Coronation

In Lady Nuffield’s bedroom

In Lord Nuffield’s bedroom. Really.

Personally I found the order of this more appealing.

Opinions between us differed as to whether we liked this bathroom.

The double spare bedroom

 

‘The horn of Plenty’.  Oxford colleges benefit from Lord Nuffield’s wealth.  The Nuffield Foundation continues to ‘improve social well-being through education, research, and innovation’ 

A trip to the woods was the treat on the last day of my visit.

Sicily 2: Alcantara Gorge

Tags

Alcanatara, Alcantara Gorge, Alcantara River, Castiglione, colubro, Etna, Etna Discovery, Gole d'Alcantara, tadpole

Sicily 2: Alcantara Gorge. This morning, Friday 14th April, was billed as a nature trail, which I think gave some of us the idea that we were in for a gentle stroll.  We did not imagine that we would be climbing up and down a gorge!

Claudio, of Etna Discovery, was our guide along the three areas of the Alcantara (stress on the second syllable) Gorge. Very knowledgeable he was too, and his strong arms at tricky passages were also most welcome.  He took us first down a shady path to a viewpoint over a particularly narrow part of the gorge.

Showing the basalt columns through which the river has worn its way

 

Then back up and along a top path to a stretch which gave an impression of a wider part of the Alcantara river valley.

This and other frogs were in a puddle in the wide path.  Most however buried themselves in the fine mud at our approach

Return to the vehicle and then down to a spot where we were able to access the river floor.

 

A rapidly shrinking pool at the side of the gorge. These tadpoles would be doomed even without the fact that a young snake has discovered them

One gorged colubro snake (about 18 inches, 45 cm, long). Ibelieve that the English name is the smooth snake.

Geoff, Claudio, Emma, Alec, Isobel and Francesca, as we emerged once more at the top of the Gorge

 

Finally, after a debate as to how we might best use the rest of our time, Claudio drove us some way away to another spot, where a quite lengthy rising walk took us to further views of the river upstream – to find that others had got there before us.

 

Distant view, much zoomed, of Castiglione, where we were find ourselves that evening for the procession

 

Hints of Mount Etna, and its vapours, in the distance

Views upstream…

… and downstream, from a footbridge

A better view of Etna snatched on the drive back to the agriturismo (a farm used partly for tourism purposes)

 

Unfortunately on the way back down to the vehicle, I stumbled on a stone, and twisted my right ankle rather nastily.  This meant that for the rest of the holiday I was having to walk very gingerly, especially where the surface was not totally flat, and when turning corners, though this didn’t prevent me from joining in any of the activities. (Dancing was not on the menu.)

Snowdrop garden

Tags

Blackdown Hills, Edwin Lutyens, Gertrude Jekyll, Hestercombe, Higher Yarde Farm, NSPCC, Quantocks, Snowdrop, Somerset Wildlife Trust, Staplegrove, Taunton

Snowdrop garden.  For two days, Friday and Saturday, the owners of Higher Yarde Farm, Staplegrove, near Taunton, are opening their wonderful early spring garden to visitors, in support of the Somerset Wildlife Trust.  Last weekend they did the same for the NSPCC.

There had been many visitors before me, despite a typical temperature of around 2°C, but as the last to arrive I had the large garden to myself, and almost missed the tea and cake on offer at the end.   I wondered whether the delightful building I had seen in the grounds was a holiday let, and learned that it was.  If I lived further away, I would be very tempted to use this as a base to explore the Quantock Hills and the Blackdown Hills, not to mention the wonderful Edwardian Hestercombe Gardens by Edwin Lutyens and Gertrude Jekyll just a few miles away.

I’d never seen so many snowdrops in one place before, but just as enjoyable were all the other signs of spring on its way, in this garden clearly designed not only to please the human eye, but to be as friendly as possible to wildlife.AA little bridge soon tempts you off to the right……towards a pond.Onward to some glades and woodland.

 

The sun came out for a few minutes

I think this may be a hedgehog shelter

Then another bridge leads you on towards the house, and tea and cake (so much choice).This is the converted barn holiday let.

 

And back down the snowdrop-lined drive.

I have a third outdoor visit for this week tomorrow…