St Peter's Pool

My first walk for 2009 was again up onto the Delimara headland from Marsaxlokk but this time I explored the cliffs at the Northern end looking out towards Sicily, only a 2 hour fast sail across the Mediterranean.  The trip across the water has been made for centuries.  As far back as the temple era, there is evidence of links between Malta and Sicily and the ancient animal bones found at Ghar Dalem on the other side of Marsaxlokk suggests there was even a land link at the dawn of time.

The photo heading up the post is of a weathered rock at the base of the globigerina limestone cliffs.  The weathering in this area is stunning and on some ledges I felt I was entering a sculpture gallery.  

After walking up the steep path to the Delimara ridge, I found a country road with lovely freestanding stone walls freshly maintained that had a makeshift sign saying simply 'Pool'.  There is someone living around here who pours love into the building of rubble walls!  They include everything not wanted in the fields, including an old gas stove, and still make them look like a work of art!

After following one of these walls that included garden beds built into the road with mature shrubs in them, the wall encloses a field chapel with a well next to some kind of fortification, a battery or redoubt probably build in the last century or two.  A little further on there is a walled up Italian style villa with an Alpen style wooden hut in the garden.  One of the practices I have noticed here is that when a house is left vacant for any length of time, the ground floor doors and windows are walled up with blocks.  

The road leading up to the villa has stunning views across a bay to a natural tunnel in the headland through to the next bay around.  I think from my map that this must be Ras il-Fenek.  The globigerina limestone cliffs have been tilted here and it looks like the sea is running downhill.  I think I can remember coming into this bay from the sea when I was a little girl.

Walking on around the cliff track, I came upon St Peter's pool from the Northern end.  This is a popular bathing area in the summer because the smooth weathered limestone ledges make good sunbathing spots  At this time of year the few people that were there were well rugged up and one person was sleeping in the last remaining pool of sunshine as the sun was heading down behind the cliffs and her two dogs were exploring the rock pools that patchwork the whole area. 

I took a track that crossed the steps leading down into St Peter's Pool from the carpark and walked around to the ledges below the Southern cliffs that I think are called Ponta tat-Tumbrell (Tumbrell Point).  I've made a mental note to find out why it has this name but it was at this point that I walked into the stunning sculpture garden.  Here the ledges leading out to the sea have been weathered into a mosaic of rockpools as well as cut into salt pans.  Massive boulders have fallen from the weathered cliffs and eroded into fantastic shapes.  Some have melted back into the base stone and smoothed into beautiful curving shapes, others have ridges of harder stone running through them and punctuating the smooth weathering of the softer stone.

I had to linger, and when I noticed that the sun was close to setting, I realised that I had run out of time to find the path round to Delimara bay so that will have to be another expedition.  I took the steps up to the carpark and found my way back to Delimara road, passing very cautiously by a barking farm dog that looked like it had an Egyptian temple dog ancestry.  Coming back to the path down to Marsaxlokk with the sun going down behind the power station, I got some great shots of the chimneys and the Freeport at Birzebbugia.

Today I want to walk up through the valley to Gudja and see if I can find the live crib that the council has put on.