This is a snapshot of our visit to The Bardenas Reales, Navarra, Spain on 27th October 2016.
An area of nearly 43 thousand hectares of Navarra (that is a huge plot of land.!)
Hot summers, cold winters and little rainfall make this an extraordinary environment.
There are three large areas of different habitat, the central part is where we went.
There are many types
of birds living here, including Short-toed Larks, Larks, Wheatears, Pintailed
Sandgrouse, Little Bustard, Stone Curlew, Dupont Lark,
The Great Bustard, Griffin Vultures, Golden Eagle, Egyptian Vulture, Eagle owl,
Kestral and many many more.
Words and indeed these
photos cannot express the experience we had on that day, especially as a lot
of the photos were taken from the moving motorhome!
However, we hope that you will enjoy these photos and maybe take a trip there
yourselves one day.
Heading out from Arguedas the road was surfaced, although very narrow, until
we came to the military base where we had to turn right.
From then on the road turned into a bumpy track and the scenery became ever
more overwhelming.
The large mountains began to loom in the distance as we got ever closer.
In the distance we saw the sheep waiting to be let loose! ................ They
patiently waited for us to pass them.
Most of the bushes were Rosemary and the scent was amazing but here even in
the desert we found beautiful little flowers looking up to the sun.
Continue with us on our journey and
we will let you interpret the photos...................
Allan thinks that the water erosion in the photo below will equal the Grand
Canyon in a few years - perhaps 2 or 3 million!!
Often we came across evidence of people having lived and worked here sometime
in the past.
Every now and then we stopped to stretch our legs, take a walk into the canyons
and take photos.
Here, we finally arrived at "Cabezo de Castildetierra"
It is a huge mountain of soft rock
protected by an overburden of hard impervious rock.
One of the questions in the Geocaching
" Earthcache" asks:
This feature which took thousands of years to form will be finally eroded in
less than 40 years from now.
Should it be protected with chemicals? Should, if it falls be rebuilt using modern machinery? Or should it just be allowed to disappear from the face of the earth?
There is no perfect answer.
We invite you to imagine what your answer would be.
This is a monument to "al Segador" (the Harvester)
Contemplating.................. thought provoking................... and so
much to take in.
One last mountain to climb before
heading home. This was one set of steps Dorothy was definitely not going to
climb!!
Sadly, Allan's phone battery had died by this time and so there was no photo
from the summit but Dorothy can testify he did make it safely to the top and
back, although coming down was a bit tricky in places!
31 km and 6 1/2 hours later we left this incredible landscape and returned to Arguedas, our heads full of all kinds of thoughts and emotions.
The end of a spectacular day we truly wouldn't have wanted to miss.