Beatrix pottering: A mountain(-ish) ascent

There was not a sound anywhere, apart from the rustling of the leaves in the wind. Nor was there the path our guidebook had told us to expect. Or a phone signal. Hmmm.

Kevin and I were taking advantage of another beautiful day to do walk number 3 (the weather app keeps threatening a lengthy period of rain, so we are living each sunny day as if it's the last). So far we've started gently, with short, fairly flat routes. This time, the plan was to hike up a mountain.

We drove north-west from Portals Nous towards Andratx past the almond blossom fields, which are coming along nicely. Our destination was the pretty little village of S'Arraco, or rather its cemetary, where the walk started. After transversing the village twice, we finally found it, just where the book said it would be. And there, as stated, was a little lane that soon turned into an earthen path winding through countryside.

After passing a single house just behind the cemetary, there were no other signs of life - no houses, no dogs, no people; just an overgrown path through undergrowth. But the directions were good (turn left at the ruined stone hut etc), and the route was surprisingly easy to find. Until it wasn't.

The problem was where to cross the stream bed. Apparently it would be marked by a cairn (a little stone pile like the ones we found on our pirate path from Cala Pi - I feel so appreciative towards previous walkers who have bothered to make these unobtrusive but massively helpful signposts). We walked, and walked; but found nothing. So should we follow our current path to who knows where? Or should we go back, and see if we can find the one we've missed?

I voted heavily for retracing our steps - I like following instructions, so wanted to do what the book said; and I also felt anxious about venturing into the unknown, despite Kevin's amazing sense of direction. So, bless him, back we went, and although we didn't find the crossing, we did find the onwards path. So having pushed our way (slightly painfully) through some thorn bushes to get to it, we stomped onwards.

Up to this point, our journey had only contained minor ups and downs. From here, it was "increasingly steep" (as the book pre-warned). We ploughed on, up to the head of the gully (I didn't know what a gully was before this, but I can now tell you it's like the beginning of a little valley, before it splits - you learn something new etc...).

And then it got serious. Kevin led the way up a very steep, rocky hillside, following a zigzagging route marked out with cairns - you couldn't even call it a path. Legs and lungs working hard, we kept on; and then we finally reached the top: a ridge, with the cliff falling steeply away below us down towards the sea, with the island Sa Dragonera lying straight ahead. Beautiful.

We had a little sit down on a rock and enjoyed the moment. Not a sign of human existence either side of us, just lush greenery, bright blue sky, and dark blue sea. Plus two mountain goats who appeared on the rise to our left, looking down at us curiously from their precarious perch right on the edge of the ridge - Kevin got a bit worried they were becoming threatening, and might at any moment scramble down to headbutt us off the cliff...

And then it was back down the mountain again. (It actually turned out to be a hill - 55m too short to classify - but it felt pretty mountainous to us.) When we got to the stream bed, we discovered how we'd missed the crossing: we'd passed a small fallen tree, and hadn't thought much of it; but it turned out that the tree had fallen on top of the marker cairn and the crossing point. At least we found our way despite this.

And that was it for walk number 3. Back to the car, and a quick detour to buy some camping chairs for the beach before collecting Jemima (we ended up eating at the main shopping mall, and it was another case of more expensive, worse food than Chameli's). And then a repeat picnic on the beach in the afternoon sun, with Jemima frolicking in the waves; followed by chocolate ice cream in the marina before bath and bed. Kevin and I agreed later that that hike was about as intrepid as we want to be - neither of us aspire to be proper mountain climbers. But we are proud of our (mini) mountain adventure.