More walks, further afield 2: Majorca 2013 - part three

PART THREE.

ALBUFERA & CALA CLARA

Tim, a 'twitcher' friend of ours, had suggested a good day out was the nature and bird reserve at Albufera, which is just outside Alcudia, so we caught a bus early this morning. We intended to hire bikes in the reserve, as it’s a HUGE place, as Tim said you could get bikes there. It was a 20 minute walk to the visitor centre where, we discovered, they no longer hired bikes out. With a 25 minute walk back to town, where hire WAS available, we decided we would carry on and walk round anyway.

The day was VERY hot today, but we were all ‘oiled up’, and were were also wearing ‘Avon skin-so-soft’ as a mosi’ deterrent. To be honest, with all this water about, it didn't work, and we were bitten a few times. However, the reserve IS lovely, and we had quite a bit of luck ‘twitching’.

This is one of the waterways. The reserve is full of these, with hundreds of water bird species to see.

We walked down to the first of the man-made hides, and bingo! There, perched on an old tree stump, was an OSPREY!

I don’t have a great zoom on my camera, but it was magnificent through the binoculars.

As we walked back to continue, we saw several people with big lenses on their cameras and cameras on their spotting scopes.

This is what they were looking at – a long eared owl, asleep not 15 feet from us!!

Tim said he was; ‘well jel’ (oh, I HATE that) as he’d been twitching for years and never seen one so close!

There was lots of other wildlife too, aside from the birds. We saw lots of really pretty butterflies, but this was the only one that would pose for me.

Looking across the grassland marsh to the mountains and the edges of Alcudia.

With all this grass and sunshine, there were loads of grasshoppers.

Not sure what these two were up to though {:-0

Another hide, with wooden access walkways.

Wetlands abound in this sanctuary, there were several egrets hunting in the shallows as we watched.

We saw this crested coot swimming below us as we sat quietly.

After our trip around the reserve, we caught the bus back to Pollensa and went for a drink at a bar where I’d heard Mariano sometimes played. Unfortunately, he no longer played there (damn).

We went back to the hotel, and as it was still warm and sunny, dropped everything, put on our ‘cozzies’, and went to the local beach (five minutes walk) for and evening swim and catch up on reading our books.

Later we went back for dinner at the hotel, which was particularly good that night, then took a bottle of wine to our room and had a relaxing read.

Next day, we planned to walk over the ridge to Cala sa Vicenç, a small resort town of four small bays, Calas Barques, Clara, Mollins and Carbo. We’d done this walk last year, but got caught in a short shower, then, while we were there and holed up in a bar, it lashed it down with proper rain! However, it stopped by the time we’d had lunch, and we walked back in the dry, so that was ok. This time there was no hint of rain. The sky was clear, and the day about 25C, just right.

It’s a warm climb in this sort of weather, but Sue just gets her hands on her hips, and she’s off!

As we descended, we passed the ‘perched populus’. These houses are built on what would seem to be impossible sites. You know just how serious things are when you read the contractors and builders are called ‘Construcciones epic’!!

We soon crested the ridge and began the descent into the first of the three bays that make up Cala sa Vicenç. The first is called Cala Carbo, the second Cala Molins, the third (and our favourite,) Cala Clara.

You can see the boat out in the bay, we intended to take this trip this year, as we’d tried and failed last year, due to sea conditions and lack of numbers.

Some of the perched houses – epic! Lovely positions, though.

What a super view to wake up to, and watch go dark in the evenings.

Cala Carbo, the quietest and most secluded of the three bays. I will snorkel this one day, as it looks like it would be really good. We’d seen some guys with snorkels and suits here, so they must know something.

No beach to speak of though, just stones, so we headed on.

Cala Molins, and the perfect sky.

The ship looks beautiful juxtaposed with the cloud

and the rugged, volcanic cliffs.

The sandy one – Cala Clara. We went onto the beach, and I did a little snorkeling but came out when I saw several jellyfish.

I told Sue, and it put her off going in. Good job really, as I think more came in with the tide as several people were stung while we were there, and the water emptied.

Such a shame, they are a curse on paradise.