Nuffara - man who scares

Our walk on Friday afternoon was lead by John Mizzi who stars in the photo above.  John has a website at www.gozo-excursions.com

We set off from the main Gozo city of Rabat to climb the Nuffara plateau.  The meaning is man who scares or scarecrow.  The countryside looks stunning just now and John's specialties are edible plants and ancient temples so there were plenty of interesting things to see and taste.  I enjoyed the fresh new shoots of wild fennel, the lemon taste of the stalks of sorrel and the flowers of several legumes and other plants.  In the photo John is demonstrating how to eat wild oats.

The climb up was steep but there were lovely views of the valley and John stopped frequently to demonstrate edibility or show us examples of different kinds of ancient pottery sherds that can be found (and left behind) all across this area.  The garigue at the top is stunning and there are girna (gorbelled stone shelters) and ancient rubble walls.   I noticed that the hunting hides in Gozo are different from in Malta and are built on a platform with a ladder to reach them.

Looking across the valley we were on the same level as Gigantija temple that I visited last year with the archaeologist, Dr David Trump.  It was easy to imagine the people who lived in the ancient rubble stone village that we walked through following the same path that we descended to go across the valley to their temple.  We also wondered about the purpose of a large boulder that had been carved into a V shape and the libation holes carved into another massive boulder.

The walk up the valley floor back to Rabat was very wet but presented another interesting side of Gozo landscape.  At this time of year the stream is running strongly and the dams were full and formed small lakes that reflected the globigerina limestone cliff edges to the valley.  It was a great beginning to our weekend of walking.