The emphasis on Saturday was on walking! We walked for seven and a half hours with very few breaks and the pace was cracking! But the countryside was dramatic and I was able to get a good set of photos when the trailing edge of the walkers had to wait as the front runners went through a particularly tricky part in single file. There were places where we even had to use a bit of rock climbing.
We set off from closer to the suburbs of Rabat than we had the day before and walked to Xaghra plateau. The village of Xaghra is isolated on the top of the plateau and the whole area is peppered with ancient temples and villages. It also has an interesting recent history and I have read about the story of how the plague was introduced from Malta and the village closed its gates to the rest of Gozo to prevent the disease from spreading. Mary Grech (1991) has written an intriguing tale called "The Stolen Faldetta."
From the plateau, we descended and found ourselves walking in the opposite direction to our walk up the valley from Nuffara the previous day. The reflections in streams and dams were even more startling as it was a lovely sunny day. Two valleys, Wied Bingemma and Wied San Blas join to go down to Ramla Bay.
We crossed the valley and climbed up steeply to walk along the ridge to Nadur where we marched through the lovely square to the public toilets. As people waited their turn, I ducked back to the square and discovered that the area around Nadur has been identified as a European Destination of Excellence as the best emerging rural zone. For some reason, all the flags around the church and the square were at half mast.
When I got back to the toilets, the front walkers had already set off again and those who were still waiting in line, sitting on the pavement, were getting distressed. So there was some whistle-blowing, shouting and use of mobile phones to get the leader to stop and wait for us. Once we were all gathered again, we dropped down into another valley and then up a very steep climb.
We came out at the ta' Tocc garigue which is reputed to be the most beautiful in Gozo. The wild fennel was in bloom and covered the plateau in a lovely soft green. The almond trees were a mass of blossom and the rubble walls were peppered with wild flowers. Below us in the valley, the Nadur fields were neat, well cultivated and the orange groves have bamboo wind breaks around them. We walked along a country road for a while with the valley fields on one side and the garigue on the other and then we left the road to cross the garigue in single file and walk along the ridge towards the sea.
When we descended on the boulder cliffs, the sea looked stunning - a lovely turquoise blue that I am coming to associate with the Mediterranean whatever shore it washes up against. We followed the path that you can see in the photo above so I was able to look up from my feet and admire the headlands as we walked.
After an hour or so of delightful walking, we rounded one of the headlands to find Dahlet (inlet) Qorrot. There was a single luzzu unloading at the small jetty. The tiny inlet has several boathouses carved into the globigerina limestone cliffs on one side, a small beach that is piled high with seaweed at this time of year and a single road curving down the cliffs on the other side. We all sat down on the steps leading down to the beach to wait for the delivery of our pizza or ftira that we had ordered the night before for delivery to this lovely spot.
Everyone was pretty exhausted at this point and stretched out in the sun. I found a shady spot by the boathouses but it was very wet here with water seeping through the limestone so I walked down along the beach front and admired how the seaweed was piled into amazing shapes on the rocks. After a while, everyone got up apparently without discussion and started plodding up the road. When I said nervously that I thought we were going to have lunch at this lovely spot I was told that everyone had decided to walk a little further before lunch. I think the mobiles must have been in use again!
We walked slowly up the road until we came to a hairpin bend with a track leading off the road to go around the headland. Here we all sat down at the edge of the road and a car arrived to unload big boxes of pizza. Now there was the drama of making sure that everybody got what they had ordered. When my vegetarian ftira eventually emerged from the boxes and the crowd, I was startled to see how big it was. A ftira is like a small pizza and it was loaded with topping and olive oil. But I still managed to eat it all!
After lunch we set off down the track and around the headland. By this time, I was starting to think that I had done enough walking for one day and this was reinforced when we again left a small country road and climbed up onto the garigue. There was no track and at one point we had to rock climb to get up a section of the coralline limestone cliff. Things were descending into an every-man-for-himself effort!
We came out again on the country road and plodded along until we reached a cross roads. At this point there was something of a revolution. The plan was to set off down to Ramla bay to our right but a large majority wanted to go straight ahead back to Rabat on the main road. I decided to go along with the majority since my lift was in that group and I thought Rabat must only be half an hour away.
It was another hour and a half before we made it! We got back to our hotel in Xlendi at 5.30 and the group that walked round to Ramla bay were only an hour behind us. My room mate went to sleep before dinner and I ran myself a bath to enjoy a long steep! But it was a great day, I felt pleased that I had managed such a long, fast walk and I came to love Gozo even more.
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