Majorca We went to Majorca for a week to get a bit of late winter/early spring sunshine and to visit the HPB site there.
Premier Inn Thursday - Our flight was at crazy o'clock on Friday morning, so we drove to Gatwick on Thursday evening to make the process a bit more manageable. We still had to get up at 4am though!
Pyrenees Friday - We were flying over the snow covered Pyrenees before 9am.
Majorca A short while later we were flying over Majorca. Here's Cap de Formentor and Badia de Pollenca. Although the weather forecast hadn't looked too promising, the actual weather on the ground was looking quite promising at this point.
Hire Car Judith had booked a hire car for the week through the HPB people for the improbably cheap price of £60. As deals that appear too good to be true generally turn out to be exactly that, I insisted that she cancel it. That only cost us £20, which was pretty good considering the incredibly short notice.So we walked up to the Hertz desk and hired a car on the spot, which turned out to be quite a good experience as they basically just tell you what they've got and you get to pick exactly the car you want. So we picked this two week old Seat Ibiza with 600 miles on it. And very nice it was too.
Apartment Half an hour later we arrived at the HPB resort. Fortunately, even though we'd arrived rather early, our apartment was ready. Here's our lounge/dining room (the dining table is out of sight on the right), which was on the top floor of the property.
Apartment And here's one of the (two) bedrooms, which were on the floor below the lounge. Both of the bedrooms had a balcony
Terrace There was also a lovely spacious terrace. This was the view looking broadly to the south-west.
Terrace View And this was the view looking broadly to the south-east.
Pool As the weather was rather lovely, we decided to walk into Camp de Mar (the "town" where the HPB site is located) for some lunch. On the way out of the resort we walked past one of the resort's swimming pools, which, as usual, had plenty of available sunbeds.
Stairs Judith walking down the stairs to the seafront at Camp de Mar.
Slow Shutter I took this using a 2 second shutter in the Slow Shutter app on my phone. It could have done with a longer expoure to blur the surf a bit more, but it was hard enough as it was holding the phone still for two seconds never mind five or six. All things considered, it came out okay though I thought.
Seafront The seafront at Camp de Mar.We had a very nice lunch in a "snack bar" that seemed to be a favourite lunch spot for local workmen. Excellent paella.
Cap Andritxol After lunch Judith headed back to our apartment and I went for a walk along Cap Andritxol, which forms the eastern side of the bay that Camp de Mar sits in. About half way along Cap Andritxol is this derelict tower, called Torre d'Andritxol.
Camp de Mar view As Cap Andritxol is quite high (maybe 300 feet or so), there were some fabulous views back down the bay to Camp de Mar. I managed to walk all the way to the end, which is tougher than it sounds as the trail was rubbish.
HPB Indoor Pool Back at the resort, here's a view of the HPB indoor pool lit up at night.
Peguera Trailpark Saturday - The weather had deteriorated overnight and it was cold, overcast and raining. But when has that ever stopped me going out for a walk?To keep things simple and local, I drove the couple of miles to the next town east of Camp de Mar, Peguera (although if I'd actually thought about it, I should have probably just walked there too). In the hills above the town is the "Trailpark", which is a network of hiking and mountain biking trails. This was the view from about half way up, looking east through the murk towards Santa Ponsa.
Peguera Trailpark This was the view looking west, back towards Camp de Mar. It's really not that far away at all. I should have walked here. Doh!
Top At the top of the Trailpark is this rocky outcrop. It wasn't that high, maybe 30 feet or so. But there was no obvious trail to the top and it was slippery from the rain. So after a few minutes of trying to find a way to the top I abandoned my efforts and headed home.
Trailpark For reference purposes, this is a photo I took of the Trailpark from Camp de Mar a couple of days later (which is why it's no longer raining). The rocky outcrop I had failed to climb is clearly visible on the left.
HPB Pool Back at the resort I met up with Judith.
Port d'Andratx. As it was only early afternoon we decided to drive to Port d'Andratx for lunch. There's a big marina at Port d'Andratx. Here I was actually trying to take a photo of the many seagulls that were swooping around, however it also serves to demonstrate quite well how cloudy it still was.
Coppola Although it was lunchtime, the miserable weather meant that there were few people out and about. So we headed into the Coppola pizzeria as they seemed to be doing a steady trade despite the lack of people around. We had a very nice lunch there.
G Wagon Convertible. I didn't even know it was possible to get a convertible version of the Mercedes G Wagon, but there seemed to be quite a few of them around Port d'Andratx. This one was sporting German number plates, so someone had had quite an exciting drive getting here.
Games Room After lunch we headed back to the resort. As the weather was still miserable (just for good measure, it was blowing a gale now too) we decided to spend some time in the games room playing pool and table tennis. Judith didn't fancy having a go on this amazing antique-looking table football table.
Majorica Sunday - The weather was still miserable so we decided to drive around 60 miles (100km) all the way across the island to Porto Cristo, which is where the Cuevas Drach are.However, first we went to have a look at the factory outlet of Majorica, who create their own pearls. I didn't take any photos in the shop as it seemed rude. And we were the only people there so it would have been really obvious. But Judith seemed to enjoy looking at all of the shiny expensive things.
Porto Cristo After leaving Majorica we headed down to the waterfront to look for a bite to eat.
Porto Beach There didn't seem to be many places open so we headed into the Porto Beach restaurant, which looked quite welcoming. I had the paella again, but it wasn't as good as the one I'd had in Camp de Mar yesterday as this one was full of bones and animals that needed to be extracted from their shells.
Cuevas Drach We suspected that Cuevas Drach might be busy due to the rubbish weather, so we'd booked ourselves onto the last tour of the afternoon to try to miss the crowds, which seemed to work pretty well.
Cuevas Drach You can't use flash photography or tripods in the caves, so it's very low light hand-held only, which is challenging. A Sony A7S would be magnificent here. My standard phone photo app was struggling a bit, but the HDR app seemed to do a fairly good job considering the conditions.
Cuevas Drach I took quite a few photos in the caves as I was surprised at how well my phone was coping with the conditions, so if you're not interested in caves you might want to skip on a few photos at this point.
Cuevas Drach Judith in Cuevas Drach.
Cuevas Drach
Cuevas Drach They do a very impressive show on this lake, with an orchestral quartet on a rowing boat sailing out of the darkness, playing appropriately atmospheric tunes. Very impressive and well worth a visit.
Cuevas Drach Last one.
Apartment View Back at home it was still raining. Very disappointing.
Sant Elm Monday - Finally the sun was out. Yay! So I was up early to drive to Sant Elm for a scenic walk up the coast. This was the view of the seafront at Sant Elm as I was setting off.
Trail The trails were good, but there were loads and loads of them going every which way, which made it a bit challenging to ensure that you were going in the intended direction.
Arrow The first one of these I walked past wondering why someone had made a ten foot long pile of rocks on the trail. The second one (this one) I finally realised that it was actually a massive arrow pointing the way to the view point. On the one hand, it would be more obvious what it was if it was a bit smaller. On the other hand, people would be more inclined to mess with it if it was smaller.
Dragonera I started to get increasingly impressive views of Dragonera, the Dragon Island. It's unclear whether the name comes from the fact that it looks a bit like a dragon swimming in the sea, or from the lots of lizards that live there.
View Point There was a derelict building and magnificent views from the view point.
Trail From the view point the trail started to climb up into the hills, where the views got even better.
Trail This bit of the trail was mental because it went to the top of that rocky outcrop, but it was impossible to see where it went (because it was crossing bare rock) and there were no trail markings (a common feature of Majorca trails that I was learning to fear and dislike).There are two German ladies in the photo climbing up the hillside, somewhere near the top. I also passed a German fellow that was taking a different route up to me. We briefly discussed tactics before heading off in different directions, both certain that we were taking the safest route. Fortunately we all made it safely to the top.
Dragonera View It was a magnificent view from the top though. From here the trail continued along a much more sensible path to a second view point.
Second View Point I was fortunate to arrive at this view point about five minutes ahead of a large group of Americans who were travelling with guides. This slowed them up a bit (as the guides kept stopping to point things out) and allowed me to get in, enjoy the view, take a few photos and get out again before they arrived.
A Signpost!!! The first signpost I'd seen all day! It wasn't much use to me though as I had no idea where "Ses Basses" was.
Col View Having climbed a couple of hundred feet from the view point I crossed over the col and was treated to a lovely view back down towards Sant Elm, which is just out of view somewhere on the right on the coast.On the way down it became apparent that it was a good job I'd started my walk early as I passed dozens of people heading up to the view points.I made it safely back to the car and headed back to our apartment to meet up with Judith and head out for some lunch.
Restaurante Es Grau We decided to head up the coast road looking for something interesting. After an hour or so we came upon the Restaurant Es Grau, perched on a cliff top overlooking the sea. That looked like a very nice place for lunch.
Restaurante Es Grau They've got a magnificent terrace. However, on this day, despite the clear blue sky, it was rather chilly on the terrace. A few hardy souls braved it, although they did look like they were definitely having second thoughts about their choice. We decided to lunch indoors.
Paella Ciega On browsing the menu I thought I'd hit the jackpot when I spotted Paella Ciega - "paella without shells nor bones". But it turned out that it was only for two or more people!!! What?! Denied (Judith doesn't like paella). So I had some pasta thing instead, which was okay, but forever tainted with my disappointment.
Mirador de Ricardo Roca Right next to the restaurant is the Mirador de Ricardo Roca. No idea who Ricardo Roca is, but his view point is excellent.
Torre del Verger A few miles further up the coast we came to the Torre del Verger. Another lovely view point with insanely rickety, ancient wooden handrails, some of which had just collapsed over the cliff. These days people often say that health and safety has gone mad. Not in Majorca it hasn't.
Estellencs As best I can tell, I think this is a view of the pretty town of Estellencs.We were hoping to make it as far as Valledemossa, but somewhere after Banyalbufar the road went mental. The road had just been resurfaced. This appeared to have entailed building a new road barely two cars wide with a shear 9 inch drop off the tarmac at each side. I managed to hold my nerve for about two miles, but each passing car was a nerve shredding experience as our "kerb" side wheels brushed the edge of the drop. So we decided to play it safe and turned around at the first safe opportunity.
Port d'Andratx On the way home we thought we'd pop back into Port d'Andratx to see what that looked like in the sunshine. Pretty nice as it turned out.
Port d'Andratx We decided to park the car and spend an hour walking along their pretty seafront.
Port d'Andratx
Port d'Andratx Time to head home.
Port d'Andratx Tuesday - This is slightly confusing as it's now the next day, but I was back in Port d'Andratx again as this was where my walk of the day started.
"Tony Hart" View I parked my car in the 'burbs and headed up into the hills. As the sun hadn't been up for very long at all there were some lovely "Tony Hart" views of the mountains in the distance through the early morning haze.
Scenery The first few miles of the trail were through fairly plain scenery (by Majorcan standards).
Wildlife The only wildlife that I saw all week.
Trail Eventually the trail stopped ascending and I got my first good view of the descent to the coast.
Cala D'Egos The trail reached the coast at Cala D'Egos, which was a lovely secluded little beach.
Cala D'Egos
Cala D'Egos Having rested on the beach for a few minutes I had to look really hard to find the side trail up the cliffs, which quickly offered some excellent views of the beach and surrounding coast. Around half an hour later I was back at my car.As it was still early I decided to drive the short distance to another very short walk to a view point.
Trail The new trail was initially very easy to follow as someone had thoughfully sprayed these red dots every few yards.
Trail However, after not very long at all the fresh red dots stopped and I was having to hunt for these worn and faded old red painted dots. As the photo demonstrates, they're not that easy to spot from a couple of feet away.
Trail How about now? It was only three quarters of a mile from the car park to the view point and I lost the trail about a dozen times. It was only because I was following a GPS track on my watch that I managed to find the view point at all.
View Point I finally found my way to the view point...
View Point ...and it was definitely worth the effort. There were great views across to Dragonera. The hill on the right is the one I walked down yesterday (after visiting the second view point where the Americans were).It was slightly easier finding my way down. I returned to my car and headed back to our apartment.
Camp de Mar I met up with Judith and we headed into Camp de Mar for some lunch
Mahou Cold fizzy lager in the sunshine. Surprisingly tolerable.
The Rock After lunch we went for a walk down to the beach bar. We walked past the restaurant on the rock, which was currently closed. I can imagine this is a popular spot when the summer season gets properly going.
Beach Judith on the beach.
ND10 I had my SLR and ND10 filter with me, but unfortunately on this lovely day there was almost no surf at all to capture in a long exposure image.
ND10 Another ND10 but you can hardly tell as the sea was so calm.
Yoga That looks like a nice spot for that sort of thing.
View Point Judith headed back to our apartment and I carried on past the resort to a view point a few hundred yards further up the road.
Sunset Because our resort is on a bay facing due south, this is about as good a view of the sunset as we got.
Moon Halo After dark there was a very impressive, and rarely seen, moon halo, which has come out quite well in this photo.
Palma Wednesday - We'd booked onto a coach trip into Palma, the capital city of the island, mainly because we didn't want to drive into the city. And I'm really, really glad that we did because the traffic was bonkers.This is a view of the Catedral de Mallorca across the Parc de la Mar.
Catedral de Mallorca Catedral de Mallorca again. I couldn't decide if I like this picture or the other one best so I've included them both.
Parc de la Mar The view of the Parc de la Mar from the Catedral.
Narrow! Judith walking in the narrow roads of the old town. And these are very much real, live roads. You often had to squeeze against the walls to make room for the passing traffic.
Es Baluard Judith outside the Es Baluard Museum of Modern Art. There was a very nice bar/restaurant here, where we had a very nice lunch.
Marina The Palma marina is possibly the most enormous marina that I have ever seen. There must have easily been a couple of thousand boats in it.Time to catch our coach back to the resort.
Walking As it was only late afternoon when we got back to the resort we decided to go for a walk to the nearby(ish) beach of Cala Blanca. Here's Judith on the trail to Cala Blanca.
Cala Blanca The beach was pretty quiet at this time of the day.Time to head home for a relaxing beer or two on our terrace.
Mountain View Thursday - Our last full day on Majorca so I thought I'd try the longest walk in my book (that was a sensibly short drive from our resort). However, at only 11 miles, I wasn't lkely to walk my legs off. There were nice views at the start as the trail climbed.
Clouds I could see clouds spilling over the peaks ahead of me...
Clouds ...and before long I was in the clouds myself.
Cap Fabioler One of the high points of this walk was supposed to be the vertiginous view point at Cap Fabioler. However, when I got there it was shrouded in cloud.
Cliffs Looking to the south there was the barest hint of the sheer cliffs.
Sunshine I carried on along the coast path and about half an hour later, in the space of a few seconds, the clouds cleared and I got my first good view for ages.
La Trapa A short while later I made it as far as the view point at La Trapa, where I'd seen the Americans on Monday. The large earth circle where I took the photo of the Americans is just visible in the middle of the photo, about to be engulfed by the clouds. Consequently there didn't seem to be much point walking down there again.
Clouds The next mile-and-a-half of the trail was a reprise of my walk from Monday. So I walked up to the col, from where I got a great view of the valley ahead. However, on this day there were clouds literally breaking up into the valley from the coast. It was amazing to watch.
Flowers Whilst admiring the grand views, remember to look at the little things too!
Tuesday View Point On the final leg back to the car I got a good look at the other side of the view point I'd taken the very short walk to on Tuesday. It was a very high and sheer drop from this side!
Resort Back at the resort I met up with Judith and we headed out for some lunch.
Port d'Andratx As we didn't fancy venturing too far we just headed for Port d'Andratx again, which turned out to be incredibly busy. We were lucky to get this rather scenic and conveniently placed paking space on the sea wall.
Marina We rather unimaginitively decided to go back to Coppola for lunch (where we went on Saturday) before going for a walk around the impressive marina.
Boat Here's Judith with one of the boats that had been lifted out of the water for maintenance.
Apartment View Friday - Time to go home, so here's the view from our apartment's terrace to finish off with. After a bit of a ropey start with the weather (which probably shouldn't be too much of a surpise in March), we had a really nice, relaxing week and will likely be back again before long.We only drove about 300 miles all week and our petrol powered Seat Ibiza consistently returned 50-60mpg, which was very impressive indeed considering the terrain.