GR 221 Day 8, 7th Feb

7th Feb 

Cold night, woke up to frost but it didn't last long after the sun rose. Coffee and croissant at the restaurant before I left to climb up to the Refugi that was full of screaming school kids.

Looking down to Lluc

I continued the climb up the hill through thick  holm oak forest, this corner of Mallorca is the waters area and it certainly shows in the vegetation.

Stone path

The forest floor is still quite bare but I believe this is due to the feral goats that eat all the saplings. There was even some moss or lichen growing on the branches.

The roadway

A roadway is reached at the highpoint and there is a mainly steady descent from there on road, track and path.

Almost like home

Lower down along the valley bottom, approaching Pollensa, you could almost imagine it was home as the path follows the river among the trees. 

Private driveway with Plane trees

At one point where there was flood crossing there were a lot of stranded oranges that had obviously been recently washed down, perfectly ripe and tasty 😋 

Oranges that had been washed down from somewhere 

I dropped my rucksack at the Refugi, as I passed, and went on to look at the town of Pollensa and finish my GR 221 journey by climbing to the top of Puig Maria.

Roman bridge at Pollensa

Puig Maria isn't the official finish but I didn't fancy walking down the main road to the harbour at Port Pollensa and it was much better to finish here high above the town at the old chapel.

View from Puig Maria

Met up with an interesting selection of international trekkers at the Refugi in the evening.

Pollensa

I forgot to mention that I saw four Black Vultures circling the hills yesterday, sometimes quite close to me, magnificent.