Tag Archives: Mountains

An aerial photo bonanza – from Vancouver to Anchorage

Tuesday 9 August 2022 – On just the second day of a major holiday that my wife and I took to Canada (separately documented), we flew from Vancouver to Anchorage in order to take a cruise back down to Vancouver. We were really lucky with the weather conditions for that flight – for most of the journey there were practically no clouds and so we had fabulous views. If your bag is aerial views of lakes, mountains, islands and glaciers, then this page will be three bags full for you.

These photos are subject to the limitations of being taken (a) on mobile phones, albeit decent ones, and (b) through an aeroplane window. They’re not exhibition quality, but I hope they give you an idea of the treat we had as we looked out at the view.

As we started, the city of Vancouver was still under a bit of mist.

but the view from the other side of the plane, over Keats Island towards Grantham Landing was clear.

I could see the glacial water flowing down the Squamish Estuary

and Jane had a view the other side, towards Half Moon Bay.

The Squamish River winds its way between the mountains.

This was my view over some lakes near Icecap Peak

and Jane got a different perspective towards Half Moon Bay.

The procession of spectacular views, from each side of the plane, carried on as we headed roughly northwards,

including some of the distinctive turquoise of glacial water.

Varying rock types could be seen

and glacier formations, like this, just south of Silverthrone Mountain.

The variety of lakes, rivers and mountains continued as we headed north west above the Inside Passage,

until we reached Ketchikan, a place we’ll be visiting next week as we cruise back down to Vancouver.

There it is

just there, where the cruise chips can be seen!

Soon after that, as we drew level with Juneau, the clouds started to gather.

and, as a friend of mine once put it, we had a “map-reality disconnect”. This is what the real-time map, as displayed on my screen, showed

and this is what I could see looking out of the window.

We had cloud then for the rest of the journey to Anchorage, and we could only see the land once we got below the clouds coming into our final destination.

It had been a memorable flight, with some stunning views; it was a real pleasure to have been in the right place at the right time.

Gran Canaria day 3 – It all depends on your viewpoint

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Sunday March 6 2022 – The day dawned with a great deal more sun in the sky and a great deal less wind in the air, which meant that the plan that Jane had formulated for the day looked a good’un. The idea was to hie ourselves swiftly down to the south of the island, taking up where we left off yesterday, and head up towards the central peak, taking in viewpoints and other items of interest on the way. As usual, we had a lot to get through. As usual, we didn’t achieve it all. As usual, we had a lot of fun trying.

The journey down to the south of the island takes about 30 minutes, during which I managed to get almost entirely to grips with the cruise control on the Peugeot without, I’m glad to say, causing any accidents, at least none that I noticed. Having got back to Maspalomas, we headed northish to something that Jane had spotted on Google Maps, which was an aqueduct built out from the rocks, which looked like it might be quite interesting. So we drove up to the point where the road became a track and then walked up the track. It was so beautifully not windy that I could actually wear a hat as protection from the sun, which was obligingly shining fit to split any paving stones it happened upon. After a short walk, we saw the aqueduct, which was indeed built out from the rock on to arches.

That was the thing we’d come to see, but whilst I was scrambling across the terrain to capture the photo from this particular angle, only getting lightly injured in the process, Jane had noticed that a little further up the track the aqueduct went across some further arches. So we walked up and examined them, initially from a distance

and then decided that it might be possible to scramble up and take a look at the water course itself (Jane had seen a photo of water flowing along the aqueduct). So, scramble we did, and we managed to get up to the arches, at which point we saw

that the water now flowed along a pipe rather than in an open channel. While it makes a great deal of sense in terms of saving on evaporation and being more efficient, etc etc, it was a little disappointing to find. However, getting up there enabled us to get a better view of the very enormous rock processing facility across the way,

and heading back down gave us some more photos of and through the arches.

On the way back down to the car, we noticed that there were some caves by the track.

We’re not sure of the provenance of them, but they look like they might have once housed people.

Our next stop was at a viewpoint a bit further up the into the hills, with the grand title of Mirador Astronómico de la Degollada de las Yeguas. It being a Sunday, and the mirador being up a twisty mountain road, it was very popular among the local biker population.

The use of “astronomic” in naming the viewpoint comes from its popularity for watching the stars – not like The Ivy or the Wolseley, I mean the night sky. It apparently gets dark at night without getting cold, which makes it a good place to gaze at the heavens.

But even during the day, you get a pretty staggering view. It’s a huge panorama.

Our next stop was a necropolis. Sorry about the focus on death here, but it can be interesting. Just up the valley, near the village of Fataga, is the necropolis of Arteara. This is not a vast and impressive spread like the one we saw yesterday or in Menorca, but we thought it worth investigating anyway.

There were signposts to the site, but it turned out that the necropolis itself is quite subtle and not at all easy to spot until you know what you’re looking for. There is a track of sorts, which leads you to a viewpoint

from which, an information board tells you, you can see many many tumuli (burial chambers) among the rocks.

No, we couldn’t spot them, either. However, once you know what you’re looking for, you can begin to distinguish them.

There’s one pretty near the centre of the photo above – look for a hole in a pile of rocks. Here’s what it looks like close to.

Bodies were laid out on cists (platform slabs) and then covered with more rocks. The local reddish stone is easy to break up to be able to do this, we are told. After a bit, you can see tumuli all over the place.

and you can begin to understand how it is that there are over 200 tumuli in total across the site. Jane had seen some pictures of a neolithic cave network, but we couldn’t find that. What we did find instead were some traditional beehives, constructed from the trunks of palm trees

and some very fine views over the area.

The palm trees are further evidence of the neolithic community that once lived here.

The nearby village of Fataga had a couple of restaurants and so we thought we’d try our luck at getting some lunch. Remarkably, we were able (a) to park the car and (b) to get a table in a very busy restaurant called El Albaricoque. They managed to fit us in and served us a decent lunch with, mirabile dictu, plenty of vegetables, a constituent that has largely been missing from most of the meals we’ve had here; and we’re of an age where getting one’s veg is almost as important as getting one’s Earl Grey tea.

The restaurant was next door to an art gallery which looked like it would have been fun to visit, had it not been Sunday and therefore closed.

Time was beginning to motor on by this stage and so we decided we’d better do the same, therefore ditching a couple of the optional sites to visit in favour of basically hightailing it back to the hotel across the middle of the island. Since the middle of the island is a ~~fucking great~~ very substantial mountain, we had quite an intricate journey along roads that Jane is fond of calling “intestinal” – narrow, twisty and occasionally making one shit oneself. However, the route went through an attractive town called Santa Lucia, and I couldn’t resist stopping to take a few quick photos.

And as we wound (a very apposite description of the roads) our way towards home in the setting sun the light gave us some absolutely marvellous views along the way.

We arrived back at the hotel well after sunset, and, as ever not having quite hit all the targets we had originally planned. But it’s been a good day and I managed those twisty roads without damaging the car in any obvious fashion, which is good.

Jane’s plan for the morrow involves going to the north of the island. Hitherto, the weather in the north has not been brilliant, but the forecast for tomorrow is good, so we shall sleep well and optimistically tonight with the prospect of another good day tomorrow. So please come back to these pages soon and take a look at how we get on.

Lanzarote, Day 2 – A Salt Course

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Saturday February 26, 2022 – The hotel breakfast was the first opportunity we’d had for A Decent Cup Of Tea since 4am the previous day, so a couple of mugs of Twining’s finest Earl Grey were a welcome part of our breakfasts. We’ve brought a decent number of tea bags with us, and I think we’ll end up taking quite a few back with us, as the opportunities for cups of tea seem to be limited to breakfast time this week.

After breakfast and a short pause to work out whether the weather was going to be right for a day’s relentless tourism (it had rained pretty copiously overnight, it seemed), we decided to get out and get on with the gawping. This turned out to be the right decision, as it was a very good day, full of rewarding sights, or, as I think of them, photo opportunities.

Jane constructed a route based once again on the “Walking in Lanzarote” book, which, those of you who followed the link in yesterday’s effusion will know, suggests some driving tours as well as walks. Our first destination was El Golfo, which has a rugged coastline upon which waves regularly smash themselves, driven by a ceaseless and brisk wind.

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A short walk along a coastal path brings you to a view over a green lagoon, the Charco de los Clicos) .

The green colour comes from particular types of algae which grow there.

The next stop was a place called Las Salinas, which – the clue is in the name – is the site of very extensive salt pans. Very extensive.

It’s difficult to do justice to the place through photos, but it’s striking sight.

Our next stop was to be a volcano called El Cuervo, but en route via Femés, which gave an opportunity to visualise how windy the place is:

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we stopped to see a couple of interesting sights, such as a roundabout with huge camel statues on it.

This roundabout marks the start of an area called La Geria, which offers a striking insight into the local wine-growing, which is a significant part of Lanzarote’s industry. Almost wherever we went, we could see the traditional near-circle walls constructed from lava rock.

Each circle surrounds a deep pit filled with lava gravel. A vine is planted in each circle. The walls offer protection from the north-easterly trade winds; and the gravel (because it’s volcanic and therefore somewhat porous) leads water into the soil to irrigate the vine. And you can see that the circles are extensive, stretching right up hillsides. Interestingly, also on show was a more modern take on viniculture.

Straight walls are replacing the circles, and are more efficient because less wasteful of space, and also easier to harvest using mechanical aid.

Our route continued through a desolate, rocky landscape.

This is reminiscent of the lava fields we saw in Iceland; and, similarly, the only thing that can grow here appears to be a lichen.

Shortly thereafter we arrived at El Cuervo, a volcano which is worth a visit because you can actually walk into the crater. It’s about a mile from the car park to the volcano, and you can walk around the whole of the outside of the volcano if you want. But time was running short so we headed straight into the caldera,

which is quite impressive.

We made a note to visit a neighbouring volcano, called Caldera Colorada, because – again the clue is in the name – the rock is brightly coloured. However the light wasn’t going to be too favourable, hence it will be better to visit another day. However, we decided that we could make time to visit a wine museum, somewhat north of La Geria.

Exiting the La Geria area takes you through a village called Masdache, where the lava flow was of a different sort, pahoehoe lava, characterised by surface ripples created when molten lava flowed beneath the solidified outer crust. (The caldera at El Cuervo, by contrast, was built up from “spatter” – rocks thrown up during an eruption and settling back into a volcano-sized heap.)

And so it was that the El Grifo wine museum was our next stop. El Grifo has been a site for wine making on Lanzarote since 1775 – it is the oldest working winery in the Canary Islands (and one of the ten oldest in Spain). The existence of the museum is down to our man César Manrique, who prevailed upon the owners to preserve old equipment and create the museum during modernisation. It’s an interesting place to wander around.

There’s a cooperage display,

many different types of wine press

and I’m particularly pleased with this picture. It’s a corker!

(Yes, a machine for inserting corks, itself inserted into one of the old wine storage tanks.)

El Grifo also has quite a remarkable cactus garden.

Our final call en route back to the hotel was at the Monumento al Campesinos, a museum
dedicated to the island’s farming history,

and also the site of a substantial work by Manrique, the Monumento a la Fecundidads.

As well as the view (above) of the museum buildings, the Manrique work also gives a pleasingly zen view back towards the road.

With the light fading and the threat of rain in the air, we headed back to the hotel for a light bite or two and a gin or two. Thus ended a surprisingly full day – very enjoyable and with a good overview of some of the key sights on the south of the island. We haven’t worked out a full plan for tomorrow, so you’ll just have to check back and find out what we did, won’t you?