birds

The Sun Returns

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Andén 13, Estación de Autobuses de Cáceres. 13.29.

That last post was a bit lacklustre. I can’t be at the top of my game all the time, but I’ll admit it is hard to write convincingly about my favourite topic – nature – when the rain kept me indoors for most of the day. I got out for a bit during the evening to have dinner at Mesón Troya, one of the restaurants in the square (usually a place to avoid in larger towns, but not so here), but beyond my short sortie beyond the castle walls, I didn’t get very far yesterday. Instead, I contented myself with watching the stars from the hilltop and counting the towns and villages twinkling in the darkness of the great plains beyond: Monroy, Santa Marta de Magasca, Madroñera, and the brilliant glow of faraway Cáceres.

Morning summoned a slow sunrise into a cloudless sky. If I had brought walking clothes, I would have set out across the llanos on foot – but Chelsea boots, a smart winter coat and bootcut Levi’s jeans don’t exactly make for the most comfortable long-distance fare, so I erred on the side of caution and took a stroll into the berrocal – the rocky hill country south of Trujillo.

Idly, I set my sights on a restored 17th century bridge some five kilometres or so from town, but I was quite happy to wander aimlessly if the path presented any interesting forks.

My working life is so full of tasks that require forethought and planning that it’s nothing short of liberation itself to have that kind of absolute freedom that I crave: the freedom to do or not do, to turn back or to push on, to take this road or that, without any thought as to the consequences (beyond the need to get back in time for the bus). A freedom that becomes maddening when it’s taken away from me, like it was in Jordan, all those years ago. It’s a hardwired philosophy that I’ve become increasingly aware of as I’ve grown older, bleeding into my views on speech, movement and identity – and massively at odds with most of my generation.

Perhaps it’s an inherited desire for freedom from my Spanish side: I do have family ties to Andalucía, a region that once made a surprisingly successful bid for anarchy, and my great-grandparents quite literally put their lives on the line to make a stand for freedom of thought under Franco’s fascist regime.

Or perhaps that’s just wishful thinking. Either way, it’s hard to deny just how important that sense of total freedom is to me. Maybe I’m more like the Americans than I thought.

I didn’t make it as far as the bridge. The full day of rain from the day before had done more than dampen the sandy soil and form puddles and pools in the road. It had also swollen the Arroyo Bajohondo to the size of a small river. It didn’t look particularly bajo or hondo, but I didn’t trust the stability of the soil underfoot and didn’t fancy making way to Mérida with soaking jeans up to my knees for the sake of a tiny bridge, so I turned about and returned the way I had come.

Without a car at my disposal, I couldn’t make it out onto the plains, home to Trujillo’s more emblematic species (bustards, sandgrouse and stone curlews), but the berrocal was teeming with wonders of its own. Hoopoes, shrikes and stonechats watched my coming and going from the rungs of rusting farming stations, while woodlarks and skylarks ran this way and that along the stone walls that marked the boundaries of cattle stalls along the way. A flock of Iberian magpies kept me company on the way back, their jaunty black caps almost shining in the sunlight, and I nearly missed a lonely lapwing sitting in one of the fields – a curiously English sight in far-flung Extremadura – before it took off on powerful, bouncing wingbeats.

Speaking of powerful wingbeats, I was practically clipped on my way down to the arroyo by three hulking shapes that flew overhead. I clocked one as a griffon – there are few silhouettes I know better – but I had a feeling the other two might have been black vultures – something about their colossal size and the heaviness of their beaks. They seemed to have disappeared by the time I turned the corner in pursuit, which is hard to imagine for creatures with a wingspan of around 270cm.

A change in perspective always helps, however. I found all three on my way back, sunning themselves on a granite boulder not too far from where I’d first seen them. I suppose I’d have had my back to them on the way down. And what an impressive sight they are! Please forgive the photo-of-a-photo until I get home and can replace the image below with the real one from my camera, which always outperforms my phone when it comes to anything that requires distance.

Even with the full day of rain, I’ve scarcely had a moment out here where I’ve felt lost or alone. Spain works an incredibly potent magic upon me, whether it comes in the form of the music of its native language, pan con aceite y tomate, the immense blue skies of Castilla or the spectacular sight of its vultures, forever and always my favourite sight in the whole world.

I conveyed this jokingly to an old lady from Villafranca on the bus. She gripped my arm with a talon that the vultures might have envied and told me in no uncertain terms to “búscate un trabajo aquí”. It does feel like the universe is trying to help me to set things right and come back. But I have to get it right. I need this to work this time. So – fingers crossed.

If I could spend the rest of my life in the passing shadow of the vultures, I’d die a happy man. BB x

Washout

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Palacio Santa Marta, Trujillo. 19.04.

It turns out the rain in Spain does indeed fall mainly on the plain. And when it does, it does so with a Biblical vengeance. I made it to my hotel in Trujillo with just seconds to spare when the heavens opened. Any hopes I might have harboured of exploring the city’s surrounding countryside were swiftly washed away, as the rain came down all afternoon, all through the night and long into the following morning.

This would be a real downer if I’d had plans. But my itinerary is an open book and I’m always happy to improvise – it is my preferred method of travel. So I enjoyed a late morning, a proper breakfast and the blissful quiet of one of Spain’s most beautiful (if isolated) towns.

Trujillo sits atop a small granite ridge in a boulder-strewn corner of the Llanos de Cáceres, a vast and featureless steppe that stretches between the Sierra de San Pedro in the west and the Ibor Mountains to the east. There’s nothing like it in Western Europe. You’d have to go as far as the Puzsta in eastern Hungary to find anything close to its vastness. Lichen-covered granite boulders rise out of the earth like giant’s teeth and the odd tree stands alone in the fields, but beyond that, it’s like staring into the infinite.

Little wonder, then, that Hernán Cortés and Francisco Pizarro – both native sons of this part of the world – set their sights on nothing less than the horizon – they’d had no choice but to do so since the day they were born.

Extremadura can be a desolate place in winter. It can be pretty desolate in summer, too, but there is a virgin beauty in its isolation. By avoiding the grasping arms of the hordes of tourists who have strangled much that remained of Old Spain into submission, Extremadura has managed to hold on to the embers of an ancient fire which exists only in the memory of those living among the tower blocks of the southern coast.

Perhaps that’s why it’s often considered one of the main contenders for the Birdwatching Capital of Europe, since so many rare and otherwise elusive species still flock here in droves, taking advantage of our absence to go about their lives as their ancestors have done since before we came to this land.

You can see some of that without even leaving the motorway. Every winter, more than 75,000 common cranes travel from their breeding grounds in Northern Europe to this remote corner of the Iberian peninsula. They spend the colder months in the shade of the dehesas, feeding on acorns. They’re a rather common sight if you look beneath the trees, and at over a metre in height, they’re hard to miss.

When I first came to Trujillo in the spring of 2016, I promptly fell in love with the place. It wouldn’t be the first remote corner of Spain that’s stolen my heart – El Rocío and Hornachos are up there – and it won’t be the last. It’s found its way into my saga as the elected home of my hero, partly out of practicality and partly out of a sense of wish fulfilment on my part. Half of me wishes I’d been brave enough to flat out ask to be sent here for my second British Council placement back in 2017. It would have been a lottery, of course, but what would it have been like to live here, I wonder? Trujillo is a lot smaller than Villafranca de los Barros – and a lot more out of the way – but infinitely more scenic.

I managed a short reccie to the north of town, before the skies turned dark once again and I had to admit defeat and return to the hotel. The cobbled streets running down from the hilltop had become rivers in their own right. It wasn’t yet siesta time, but nobody else was out and about. And with good reason!

From my vantage point on the second floor of the hotel, I can see out across the plaza and the rest of town. There isn’t all that much to see, with the rain clouds obscuring most of the world from view, but when the sun is shining, you can see straight across to the pyramidal Sierra de Santa Cruz – and the town at its feet, curiously named Santa Cruz de la Sierra (I’m not altogether sure which came first).

If the weather had been kinder I’d have set out at first light and tried to reach the old Moorish settlement at its summit… but then, I haven’t exactly come dressed for a hike. Perhaps it’s for the best that I have had a day to take it easy in Trujillo.

Tomorrow is a new day. 0% chance of rain. I don’t need to rush off anywhere, so I might go for a stroll after breakfast and try to soak up the countryside while I’m here. BB x

Camino XXXV: Birds of a Feather

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Albergue de Peregrinos, Lugo. 20.30.

Three days shy of Santiago and my feet are starting to get the better of me. It’s been a minor miracle that I’ve made it this far unscathed, but I suspect that murderous climb up and over the Hospitales route – coupled with several forty kilometre days back to back – have conspired to give me one final challenge in the form of two mirrored blisters, one on each of my little toes. I brought a veritable school kitbag of Compede plasters with me on this Camino, but I gave most of them away to my younger companions during the Meseta stage (as they really were suffering a great deal more than I am now), so I have had to resupply tonight.

Fortunately, the end is in sight. Three rather challenging days remain, as I still have a hundred kilometres to clear (Lugo conveniently marks precisely 100km from Santiago), but I remain steadfast in my desire to see this thing through to the end. I’ve come this far.

I don’t have an awful lot to report from this morning’s walk. I took it slowly to give my feet a break, but I still didn’t see any more than the three pilgrims from the albergue in Castrojeriz who left ahead of me, and that within the first hour and a half.

I didn’t sleep very well because the rakes from the night before decided it would be a great idea to go the bathroom and laugh their heads off at some private joke sometime around midnight. I’d normally be wide awake at that time of night anyway, but on the Camino, sleep is precious, so before I knew what I was doing my teacher mode activated and I found myself opening the door to the bathroom to give them a piece of my mind. They looked dreadfully disheveled with bloodshot, unfocused eyes, and had clearly been both drinking and smoking. I tried to get back to sleep afterwards, but it must have been another hour or so before I could do so.

It’s not always easy to deactivate from teacher mode, even on holiday. I remember doing something similar on a stag do once when some of the fellows I was with decided it would be fun to kick a football into the road. This kind of thing used to come very hard to me, but I guess practice makes perfect. Or a perfect party pooper, take your pick.

I was up again at half four, but delayed leaving until around six, as Lugo was only twenty kilometres’ distance and I didn’t want to get there too early, even at a slower pace than usual. Even so, I was early enough to see a fair number of roe deer in the woods, one of them so close I could see the light in its eyes before it bolted.

I reached Lugo shortly after eleven without any great difficulty. It was a poor morning for stamp collecting. I passed what I am sure is a famous Primitivo stop, the Oasis Primitivo, where both stamp and watermelon can be had at the right time of day, but it was not yet nine o’clock and a Monday morning and there was nobody around. So I pressed on.

Mondays can be frustrating on the Camino. On Sundays, all the shops and supermarkets close for the whole day and Monday can be little better. Twice now I’ve made landfall in a large town or city on a Monday, only to find that all its sites and museums are closed on Mondays. So it was with Lugo. At least the 100km sign was free and easy to see.

Lugo’s cathedral pays no heed to Spain’s Garfieldesque aversion to Mondays, so I had a look around. Contrary to what several folks online were saying, it’s not free, but it is a cheaper fare for pilgrims at 5€, which isn’t so bad. It’s not as spectacular as León or Burgos, though the chapel to the Lady of Lugo, la Virgen de los Ojos Grandes – the Lady of the Large Eyes – was rather impressive. Her eyes didn’t seem especially large, but maybe it’s because hers were painted brown rather than blue, as is often the way, so they seem like great pools of dark light.

The albergue was pretty busy, as I expect will be the case for the next two nights as the Primitivo rejoins the Francés in Melide, but they’ve almost all of them gone out for dinner, so I’m alone to write. The pseudo-Compede on one of my heels isn’t sticking so well, so I’m keeping one leg balanced on top of the other. In a week from now, I’ll be back in the comfort of my own bed (provided I can get my hands on my key!) and my tired feet will finally be able to rest at last. But let’s not dwell on that just yet.

Instead, I thought I’d take you through my beautiful collection of feathers that I’ve found along the pilgrim road this year. None of them are quite as rare or as beautiful as the fossil scallop – well, perhaps one of them – but I know them and I know their origin. Each one tells a story.

Stashed away in my journal, the smaller ones: a tiny goldfinch feather (rescued from a spider’s web by Audrey, one of my American companions), a feather from the wing of a great-spotted woodpecker and the plume of a large white bird, either a stork or a great bustard, found beneath the flight path of the six birds I saw on my way to Frómista.

Also within the back pocketof my journal are four more finds, all from different stages of the Camino: a quail feather from the Aragonés, a kestrel’s wing from the Francés, a tawny owl’s downy flight feather from the dark forests of the Camino de San Salvador and a chest feather from the breast of a peregrine falcon, found in the cloisters of Lugo’s Cathedral on the Primitivo. It is surely this last that is the most emblematic in the collection, since the name Peregrine Falcon might literally be translated as “pilgrim” or “wanderer”. It’s a direct translation in Spanish (halcón peregrino), so to find such a thing as my journey draws to a close seems apt.

And then there’s the larger finds, the feathers that are too big to fit inside my journal, and so remain slotted into my rucksack during the day’s walk. The long and tapering black finger of a crow seems right, as this has been a familiar companion along the Primitivo, as is the small buzzard plume, and the black and white feathers of a white stork serve as a reminder of the Meseta and the town of Boadilla, where we lost our fearless German companion Theo to major foot complications. The other two have been with me since the very start of the Camino, discarded by a red kite and a griffon vulture on the rugby pitch at Bedous.

The largest of them all, the vulture, has been my totem on this trek. I found a similar one when I was a lad in the mountains of Andalusia, which I still possess to this day, but it has not been on the adventure that this one has.

I am rather attached to it. I find myself checking over my shoulder at least four or five times a day to make sure it’s still there. I sometimes feel I’d be more alarmed if it went missing rather than my watch or wallet – as though it’s been a lucky talisman of some kind.

Whatever it is, it once belonged to a proud and magnificent creature, and I have carried it with me for nearly a thousand kilometres. Through sun and rain and under the moon and stars. In the blinding light of the meseta and the towering shadows of the great cathedrals of Castile. Across sand and stone, hill and dale, moor and mountain – and, hopefully, to the end of my journey.

I don’t really believe in lucky talismans – I prefer to subscribe to the notion that the Creator has a master plan – but, like my faithful Niña and Pinta, they do provide some comfort along the road. The final hundred may yet be my greatest challenge of all, so I will need all the comfort I can get! BB x

Camino XXXIII: Forty-Five

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Albergue Pensión Casa Cuartel, A Fonsagrada. 17.15.

My feet are seriously tired, but I’ve done it – the longest stint yet on this year’s Camino. Forty-five kilometres of hills, sierras and reservoirs, of steep descents and sunlit climbs, which puts me one day closer to Santiago and gives me the peace of mind to spend a day exploring the city the day after I get there. I sacrificed seeing a local festival in Grandas de Salime for this, but after speaking to some of the pilgrims in this hostel, I think I made the right choice. It sounds just like the set-up at Castrojeriz, which – if memory serves – left me with a little less than two hours’ sleep after the local verbena went on into the small hours.

There are two English lads in this hostel who must be fresh out of private school, talking about “going for brekkie” in that easily identifiable southern drawl and using the same slang terms like “cooked” and “rizz” that my students do. They’re sitting on the steps outside playing one of those mobile phone games that their generation seems to be absolutely hooked on. They’ve been doing so for the best part of the last two hours, talking loudly about their tactics as they do. The two men from Valencia who went the wrong way today are both fast asleep in the next bunk, which is the quietest the shorter of the two has been all afternoon – he’s a particularly merry sort.

I left Berducedo a full two hours before dawn, long before any of the other pilgrims were up. There wasn’t even the faintest glow on the horizon, so I did have to use my phone torch for some of the trek, especially the hundred metres or so that cut through a forest (where a number of large bats seemed to enjoy the light and the moths it attracted). The constellations were a sight to behold, as was the arm of the Milky Way stretching away to the west, towards Santiago. It’s not quite Perseid season – that’s still a little over a week away – but I did see one shooting star away to the south and made a wish.

The first cold glow of dawn descended as I began my own descent into the valley before Grandas de Salime. It’s a very steep path that zigzags down the hillside, descending by 800m in a very short space of time. I was quite happily enjoying the Battle of Helm’s Deep when a nightjar almost clipped my face with its wings and one of the rocks in the path ahead suddenly grew wings of its own and took off into the morning air. There were at least three of them hawking about the track, looking for all the world like enormous feathered moths with their strange alternating flight, sometimes flappy, sometimes gliding with their wings held high.

One landed in a tree nearby and set up its eerie churring call, which is almost as iconic to the Camino as the endless tread of my own feet.

Another – the one I had mistaken for a rock – alighted on the track a little way ahead. I approached very slowly and, at least for a little while, it didn’t look like it was in any hurry to take off again. I got so close that I could see it yawn with my own eyes: their vast, gaping mouths are one of the features that gave them their Spanish name of “chotacabras”, or goatsuckers. I almost missed the hare that came bounding out of the grass behind it, appearing more clearly in the photos I took than it did in reality.

Of course, it took off before I could get too close, making its strange grooik flight call as it did so. It landed a little way back up the path but I left it alone and pressed on.

Nightjars are just one of the rewards of setting out early on the Camino. You might hear them, but you’d never see them if you set out after breakfast. I’ve been lucky enough to see quite a few on this year’s Camino, but never so close and never on camera. I haven’t wanted my SLR often on this Camino – I’m carrying enough as it is – but today I would have given a small part of my library to have had it in my hands!

I reached Grandas de Salime shortly after nine, making it a four hour walk from Berducedo (compared to the guidebooks’ suggestion of six or seven). This is usually the stage end, but as it was not even the halfway point, I allowed myself a decent breakfast of a tostada con aceite y tomate, a slice of tortilla and some fresh orange juice so that I might have the energy to push on. There were a few pilgrims having breakfast at the bar, but not that many. The townsfolk were setting up for the second night of their local festival, and I imagine a number of pilgrims had decided to stick around and have fun. I, however, had another twenty-five kilometres still to go and couldn’t stay for long.

I trailed a couple of Brazilian pilgrims for a little while before Peñafuente, dressed in sporty Lycra, marching cactus-print parasols, a giant Brazilian flag and immaculate hair (something the Brazilian pilgrims seem to prioritise above all other things). I’ve become a lot less cagey about drinking from unmarked fountains along the Camino and the one at Peñafuente was absolutely incredible. The guidebooks recommended the one at Fonfría, but that wasn’t as good or as cold as the one at Peñafuente, so I drank deep and bottled deeper, as it was still a long way to A Fonsagrada. I had hardly begun the second leg, which the guidebooks suggested should take eight to nine hours, and what clouds there were in the sky did very little to block the sun. I was going to need all the water I could get. I can be a real camel on the Camino, but it’s always best to be prepared.

There are quite a few hills to climb between Grandas and A Fonsagrada, none of which were particularly easy under the midday sun. The Camino cuts right through one of Asturias’ many wind farms, though these ones are nowhere near as enormous as the turbines found up in the mountains on the San Salvador route. The heavy whoosh of their arms as they spin in the wind is quite something to hear up close, punctuated with the odd mechanical whirr when the head tilts one way or the other. The way the Spaniards were complaining about the wind up in the mountains yesterday, you’d think that wind was a rare occurrence in Spain – but the turbines that crown many of Spain’s hills and sierras say otherwise.

The Spanish are nothing if not practical with their high places. If there isn’t a watchtower, a sanctuary, a hermitage or a radio mast on top of this or that hill, there’s usually a row of wind turbines.

I passed the first row of turbines before sunrise this morning. You can just about see them to the right of the nearer turbines in the photo below, on the last range of hills before the wall of cloud held back by the mountains of Asturias. It’s a good indicator of just how far I walked today.

Shortly after passing the last row of turbines, I crossed the border into Galicia, the last of Spain’s regions on the Camino de Santiago. The marker wasn’t as grand as the one at O Cebreiro – just a crude line of flints and a small cement block featuring a Facebook link to a motorcycle page owned by a guy called Nando, which also happened to indicate that Asturias was on one side and Galicia on the other.

The scenery is already different. The hills are no longer quite as rugged. Instead, they’re carpeted in golden grass and purple heather. I was sorely tempted to get an ice cream at O Acebo, but decided to postpone that desire until I had reached my destination. It took another two and a half hours from the border to reach A Fonsagrada, and the last steep climb up to the hilltop town didn’t help, but I was relieved to learn that the albergue I had found was a bit of a step up from the usual, with real linen bedsheets, soap in the showers and an in-house washer-dryer complex (though I still prefer to wash my clothes by hand whenever I can).

So… forty-five kilometre days can be done, even on the Primitivo! That’s the longest I’ve done so far, and probably the longest I’ll do this year. There’s no sense in rushing to Santiago, which is a lot more expensive to stay in than the towns and villages along the way, so from here on out I intend to enjoy the Camino at a relatively leisurely pace.

Which is, of course, a white lie – because after 45km, 30km is relatively casual. Or 35. Or even 37… BB x

Camino XXIV: The Road Not Taken

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Plaza Mayor, León. 21.03.

Tomorrow marks the end of one Camino and the beginning of another. And not a moment too soon. I fear my social battery is at maximum capacity. I got the jitters after showing up late to the dinner the others had arranged at the Royal Tandoori, to find a crowd of fourteen.

Maybe it was the sudden shift from the intimate setting of my haircut the hour before to a busy table of English and Americans holding court over an Indian meal; or maybe it was the location of my Siege Perilous as the final invitee, squashed into the corner; or the fact that they’d started without me.

Whatever it was, I know now that my decision to leave the Camino Francés is a wise one. It’s a little shameful to admit, but I could use a break. I’m not proud of the fact that these social settings continue to throw me every so often, but I am getting better at hitting the escape button before it escalates.

On the walk into León this morning, Talia asked me a question that has genuinely had me thinking all day. I think it was something like this:

When did you decide not to pursue a career in biology?

At first it seemed a pretty straightforward question. My grades in Biology were never all that great, the competition at my school was just too much and it never occurred to me even once to study Biology (or Natural Sciences) at university.

But with a little context, I can see why she asked me that out of the blue – and I’m frankly amazed how much I’ve suppressed what is nothing less than a core memory that might once have changed the course of my life.

Audrey was using an app to identify some of the birds we’d seen since leaving Mansilla de las Mulas – I think it was Seek. I pointed out a few things I could hear: serins in the branches of a nearby tree, a booted eagle circling in a field, the bee-eaters we’d heard the day before.

I guess it was that quickfire succession of names that prompted Talia’s question. My answer was fairly improvised, but I think it checks out.

When did I decide not to pursue a career in biology? When I realised that it was never going to be about zoology – not under the British education system, anyway. That, and my mathematical ability was (and is), quite frankly, dismal.

I have various interests. I’m a musician. A linguist. A writer, an occasional poet and a Hispanist. A mimic. A Catholic. But before all of these things, I am a naturalist. Before I found my fluency in Spanish and French, I could already understand the calls of every bird in the British Isles and could tell you what most of them meant: warning, alarm, hunger and mating calls. It was, I suppose, the first language I ever learned.

I was just as obsessive with my childhood interest in dinosaurs: I had to know them all. Where they were found, why they were called what they were called. It wasn’t enough to know the famous ones, like the T-Rex and velociraptors – I had to dig deeper. One such precocious example that comes to mind was my decision to bring along a Eustreptospondylus drawing to Show and Tell at primary school. Doubtless an elephant would have sufficed, but why would I ever have settled for something as basic as that?

I still have discarded exercise books that my parents gave me where I logged all the species mentioned in wildlife documentaries. I always put down the title and locations covered, and I sometimes wrote the date, too. Others I used as scrapbooks, taping in feathers and sketching footprints and writing about when and where I found them.

You’d have thought that these might have been the early indicators of a scientist. Certainly, I wanted nothing more than to be a palaeontologist when I was a kid (which can be gently excused by the fact that the BBC’s peerless Walking with Dinosaurs documentary series came out just in time to capitalise on my five-year-old dinosaur obsession.

When I was a little older, I genuinely considered a career in conservation. I entertained the idea of a degree in Ornithology, or something similar, to allow me to put my fiendishly good memory for birds and their calls to use.

And then, suddenly, that dream died.

It was probably the maths that killed it. All the natural science degrees I explored required a basic level of mathematical competence and at the time I was struggling to scrape even a passing grade at GCSE. Chemistry, too – a lot of Zoology degrees suggested chemistry as an A Level, and chemistry was far too mathematical for me. Without maths, my conservation aspirations were dead in the water. That was that.

But there was another factor that pushed an old dream out of the nest: the slow decay of a child’s interest as the subject closest to his heart never even materialised in the subject that should have concerned it most intimately.

My memories of Biology center on two things: plant cells and sourdough bread. I was so excited when food chains and food webs came up, until I realised that, within the British curriculum, that was the one and only time that animals would be mentioned. Everything else was so cold, so clinical. Palisade walls and mytochondria. Genomes and inheritance, though usually in plants. The fact that I knew the names of every animal and bird in the British Isles (and most of Europe, for that matter) gave me no advantage whatsoever.

My school was a specialist science school. Our Biology department was doing really exciting things with MS research, and it was one of my Biology teachers who was instrumental in sending me out to Uganda on my first ever teaching post. But somewhere along the way, my aspirations as a conservationist were slowly choked by the strangling vines of the British science curriculum. Zoology, palaeontology, anthropology, ornithology and even primatology were all areas I was desperate to explore, but as the years went by and Biology concerned itself less and less with the natural world and more and more with the minutiae of bacteria and cell structure, the less I cared for it.

It must have been around then that I first entertained the idea of becoming a teacher – once I realised I would never be good enough at two of my weakest subjects to survive to the point when Biology became Zoology. Fifteen years old and already carrying the shards of a shattered dream.

One way or another, I think I realised early on that there was little that a Zoology degree could teach me that I truly desired. I didn’t need to pursue a career in science to justify my greatest love. Knowing the names of every animal and bird gave me a sort of spiritual connection with each and every one of them – no scientific research could work a greater magic than that. Still, it’s interesting to think where my life could have gone if I’d really committed to that path.

Instead, here I am, gone thirty, walking the Camino with a head that twists so quickly when I see the silhouette of a kite or vulture that it’s a miracle I haven’t twisted my neck yet.

It’s hard to say what my experience would be like if I walked all the way to the end of the road with these wonderful people. I will never know, because I have made my choice. And I know it is the right choice. It will take me up into the mountains and back into the natural world, where I am and have always been at my happiest.

Here’s to that – to good health and happiness, and a significantly harder road ahead! BB x

Camino XX: Soup and Bustards

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Albergue Municipal de Peregrinos, Frómista. 19.59.

Well, you’ve got to hand it to the good people of Castrojeriz. They may not sleep much, but they sure know how to party.

The Garlic Festival kicked off at around 7pm. While the others ordered pizza, I went without supper (with the free sopa de ajo in mind), which turned out to be a mistake. They finally started serving at 9.40pm, and queuing for half an hour, I reached the serving station only to find that you had to bring your own bowl. Turns out the identical brown bowls the townsfolk were all carrying can be found in every home in Castrojeriz and beyond. It would have been nice to know before getting in line – you know, like a sign or something – but then, Spain has never been overly fond of letting non-locals in on its secrets. So I was dismissed with an apologetic ‘ay, pobre’ by one of the volunteers and went to bed on an empty stomach.

I had about an hour’s sleep until the Orquesta Dakar started playing just after midnight. They didn’t stop until ten past two in the morning, after which they were followed by a DJ until half past four. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy the music, as it was absolutely my taste – Suavemente, Las manos pa’ arriba, Bailando, Madre Tierra, Mentirosa, El Tiburón and, randomly, You’re the One that I Want, to name just a few – but it did mean sleep was impossible. Then there was the family of locals who stopped beneath our window and, for whatever reason, decided to start howling and barking like dogs for a couple of minutes sometime between two and four (clearly all that garlic had no effect on the local werewolf population). I must have passed out somewhere around four, and was up again by five.

Thank goodness today was a shorter day!

There wasn’t much call for shooting off early on some monstrously long hike on no sleep (which I’ve been known to do when sleep-deprived), so I stuck around and had the fried breakfast buffet I’d paid for. We tackled the Alto de Mostelares and were up and over by half past seven. It was an easier climb of it than it would have been under the midday sun, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I should have pressed on yesterday and made for the Ermita de San Nicolas for a more spiritual (and restful) stop.

Descending from the hill, I found a manic speed in my feet and took off at a vicious pace. I didn’t need to, really, considering I had left far too late in the morning for another mad rush to Carrión, but for some reason I wanted to go it alone this morning.

It did mean for a bit more wildlife observation than I’ve managed for a while. There were a few silhouetted harriers up on the high Sierra de Mostelares, and a couple of rabbits and red deer grazing in the fields beyond. I was accompanied all the way by small families of stonechats and huge flocks of serins, twittering merrily from the stands of trees by the road.

This morning I had a close encounter with a zitting cisticola, a characterful little bird with a name that pretty much tells you all you need to know to identify it. They’re usually heard and not seen, measuring around 10cm from beak to tail and zitting high in the air and out of sight, but this one was quite happy to watch me go by, and didn’t flinch when I stopped to take a photo.

I considered staying in Boadilla del Camino, but just like two years ago, I arrived around 10, about three hours before the albergue was due to open. So I waited for the others, had a drink and carried on.

From Boadilla, the Camino follows the Canal de Castilla, a strange 18th century project that irrigates the northern reaches of Castilla y León. I saw just the one family coming the other way and no pilgrims, but I did have a brief encounter with a magical creature of the steppe: a flock of great bustards, one of Europe’s largest, rarest and most impressive birds. I’ve only ever seen them in the distance from trains or buses, but they’re always unmistakeable in flight: enormous, swan-like things with mottled feathers and pure white wings. It made my heart soar a little in this strange and man-made part of the Camino.

Well, I’m here in Frómista, which I bypassed last time. You know what? It’s not so bad. The albergue municipal is decent and the company is highly entertaining. I guess I gave it the cold shoulder last time in my hurry to press on and meet the crowd. I’m glad I stayed over. BB x

Camino VIII: A Hundred Eyes

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Albergue de Peregrinos, Monreal. 15.10.

One of the best things about the Camino – at least, for somebody who does not particularly enjoy sticking to a strict plan – is its absolute freedom. You can aim for a particular destination at the end of the morning, but if you overshoot, or find a place you like along the way, you can always change your plan. And – it goes without saying – there is no “true” Camino. There never has been. There is simply your route to Santiago, wherever that may lead you.

Today, I decided to take a major detour through the Foz de Lumbier, deviating from the “official” Camino by some six kilometres, in search of one of the most striking landscapes to be seen on all of the routes to Santiago de Compostela.

Google Maps suggested the detour would take around eight hours, so I set out early, leaving Sangüesa’s albergue at around 5.15am (5.20, technically, as I left my sticks behind and had to double-back to get them). The Camino turns off about half a kilometre north of Sangüesa, just before the Smurfit industrial complex, but I pushed on along the road towards Liédana. There was quite a bit of traffic at first, but it was mostly workers going to the factory: after leaving the complex behind, I hardly saw anyone on the road.

There were a few scattered yellow arrows west of Liédana, indicating that this must once have been one of the many Camino routes, if not perhaps one of the more commonly known alternatives. I had timed my arrival at La Foz for sunrise, knowing that any earlier would have been far too cold and dark and any later would risk a merciless march along the roads later on. Plus, in the first hour after dawn, it’s always possible you’ll find something unexpected, as the animals of the night make their final rounds before retreating into the dark places where they hide during the day.

I had not counted on the wind. A fierce north wind was blowing this morning, almost strong enough to knock the sunglasses off the top of my head, and easily powerful enough to make it impossible to listen to the audiobook I had on (Robert Harris’ Conclave – a little late to the party, I know).

La Foz de Lumbier is one of two major canyons that can be found in the Sierra de Leyre, formed by the southwest passage of two rivers, the Irati and the Salazar. The other, La Foz de Arbaiun, is even grander still, but stands some twelve kilometres to the east of Lumbier, putting it well out of reach of even this overambitious pilgrim for today.

The north wind was still howling down the canyon when I arrived, which made the tunnel access all the spookier: the only way in and out of the canyon is via two long tunnels cut into the cliffs, neither of which are lit. The southern tunnel curves around to the right, pitching you into total darkness for half a minute or so.

Once inside, a gravel track known as a Via Verde (a converted railway line) leads you along the gorge. Had I arrived later in the day, perhaps, I might have seen some of the canyon’s famous Egyptian Vultures: bizarre, chicken-faced creatures with white plumage and diamond-shaped tales that migrate to Spain from their winter quarters in Africa each year. However, they were nowhere to be seen this morning, presumably sitting on their nests deep in the many caves within the cliffs.

The gorge’s other resident vultures, however, were everywhere.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that my passage through the canyon was being very closely watched, as though hundreds of eyes were following me along the river. My guess wasn’t far off the mark: once my eyes adapted to the twilight of the canyon, I realised that many of the bushes atop the canyon walls were in fact a great host of griffons, staring down at me with bobbing movements of their snakelike necks.

Every so often one or two of them would spread their monstrously huge wings and take off into the morning, before returning, feet dangling, to land on some other outcrop downriver, before turning their hulking shapes to see how much progress I had made.

I make no secret of my love for vultures. They are far and away my favourite animals on this planet, and especially griffons. I have never recovered from seeing one for the first time during that first trip to Spain: never accustomed to anything larger than a herring full, I was spellbound by the sheer size of the beasts, with their hulking shape, their silent circling flight and the long, trailing fingers on the end of each wing. That obsession only intensified when I came face to face with them during a solitary climb up the misty mountain of El Gastor, where I spent an incredible hour watching the giants appear suddenly out of the mist at eye level, merely feet away from my perch at the edge of the mountain.

So perhaps you’ll understand why I was so quick to slap an extra six kilometres onto today’s 27km hike, if only to spend some time in the presence of these magnificent creatures. They truly take my breath away.

But Lumbier had more than just vultures to sling at me. Just before leaving the gorge, I noticed something moving in the water below. It might have been the wind, which had been making shapes across the surface of the river all morning, but this was moving slowly against the current. Something long, snake-like, with a white-whiskered face: an otter. Talk about a stroke of luck! Just like the lynx I encountered in Doñana earlier this year, this was a first: I have never seen an otter in the wild before, or at least, one that I could call with any degree of certainty. iPhone cameras are good, but they can’t zoom and they’re not brilliant at moving objects in low light, but if you look closely you can just about tell what you’re looking at!

Really, I ought to have hung around at the other side of the tunnel to see if it reappeared, but I wasn’t entirely sure how long it would take me to get back to the Camino, so I played it safe and left the otter to his morning swim. I certainly couldn’t have done an awful lot better with my phone camera even if it did return. I’ll just have to come back someday with the rest of my kit.

Instead, I skirted the town of Lumbier and made my way back to the Camino. This was easier said than done: the “official” route meanders through the turbine-topped hills on the other side of the roaring A-21. Getting back to it was no easy feat, so I followed the old concrete road to Jaca for about 8km.

Normally, road stretches along the Camino can be quite hairy, with grim or even challenging looks from drivers. A spate of pilgrim deaths on the “original” Camino, now overlaid with concrete highways, led to the move toward the current network of tracks and footpaths. However, thanks to the A-21, which runs parallel, there was hardly anyone on the road at all, which made for a very peaceful (if monotonous) walk.

The sun was well on its way to its throne in the Castilian sky by now, and with it, the vultures of La Foz de Lumbier came drifting out on the thermals, as though to see me off.

I had a veritable fleet of raptors to keep me company today. As well as the vultures, a few kestrels, buzzards and booted eagles were circling the hills around Izco, along with the usual red and black kites. Today added two new encounters to the mix: a pair of short-toed eagles – exceptional snake-hunters – and a young hen harrier, my first (and hopefully not last) of the Camino. I have an especial fondness for harriers, especially the ghostly grey males, whose long, tapering wings and bouncy flight always conjure up images of the endless meseta in my head.

The cattle-crowded foothills of the French Pyrenees seem like an age ago. We are now very much in crop country. It hasn’t had much of an impact on the flies, which are everywhere this summer (I suspect the two months of rain Spain had this spring has caused their numbers to explode this year), but it does make for considerably easier terrain.

Contrary to what the guidebooks say, Monreal does have a working bar/restaurante. The hospitalera should know – it’s her husband who runs it! So I will grab a pizza there tonight, before the last long march of the Camino Aragonés tomorrow toward Puente La Reina and the start of the next stage of my journey: the busier Camino Francés. At least, I hope it will be busier! There’s no guarantee in July, but it should at least have more than one pilgrim in the albergue from night to night! BB x

Camino I: The Wall

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Monastère de Sarrance, Sarrance. 15.07.

I’m sitting in the garden of Sarrance’s Premonstratensian monastery after a good morning’s walk. I didn’t have too far to go today: just over 20km, all in all, which is a good distance for the first couple of days as my feet get used to walking long distances again.

Sarrance is a quiet little village, perched on the west bank of the Aspe river which snakes its way north out of the mountains. Every now and then I see great shadows on the mountainside, cast by the hulking shape of a griffon vulture. There must be about eight or nine of them up there, circling above the craggy ridge of Escot. It feels good to be back in griffon country. It feels like home.

I left Oloron at seven on the dot this morning. Late, by summer Camino standards, but as I wasn’t aiming to travel far, there seemed no point in rushing a decent breakfast only to have to wait at the other end. There aren’t many pilgrims on this Camino, but I had a lovely communal dinner with Christian and Miguel, a Frenchman from Toulouse and a Belgian (rather, a Spaniard from Málaga who has lived in Belgium for almost his entire life and is now, to all intents and purposes, as Belgian as Leffe beer).

I set out on my own, as is my Camino tradition (and also because I know my pace tends to outstrip most pilgrims). Mercifully, somebody sent down from on high a great belt of clouds, so for the first half of the morning I was sheltered from the heatwave that is raging across Europe right now.

Which is just as well, as I was absolutely mauled by mosquitoes last night (it was far too hot to slip under even the flimsy sheet provided, never mind my sleeping bag liner), so the last thing I needed was a full morning’s sunburn to worry about on top!

Today’s stretch involved quite a bit of off-roading through the dark Pyrenean forests that cover the valley floor. There isn’t as much signposting here as there is on the Camino francés, but the reliable GR symbol (the red and white stripes) and the occasional seashell serve as decent waymarkers. I didn’t get lost once today, and that’s the important thing, because in this heat, every detour and reroute becomes a proper trial.

By nine o’clock the sun was back with a vengeance, clearing all the cloud cover in a minutes. I was sweating buckets at this point, so thank goodness for breathable fabric, or putting my backpack on after every stop would have been very unpleasant!

There’s a huge quarry carved into the mountainside just south of Lurbe-Saint-Christau. I don’t think I’d have given it much thought beyond ‘Jesus, who’d be working in this heat’ and ‘what kind of demon thinks it’s a good idea to take a huge bite out of a mountain’ until a deafening explosion caught my attention not longer after I’d passed it by. I couldn’t quite tell, but from the column of smoke and the enormous boulder tumbling down the slope it looked like the workers had dynamited a piece of the mountain.

I wonder if quarry workers ever feel a sense of remorse for what they do. It takes millions of years to build a mountain, and seconds to punch a hole in it. Or maybe I’m just being sentimental.

After the hamlet of Escot, the Camino winds its way through the forest along the banks of the Aspe River. There’s really nothing quite so pure and beautiful as a mountain stream, and I was drinking in the sight and sound of it for all of an hour and a half. It was all I could do not to strip down to my shorts and dive into the water (though I bet it would have been teeth-chatteringly chilly). I kept an eye out for otters, kingfishers, and even the Pyrenean desman, but no luck. Plenty of other critters kept me company along the road, like black redstarts, woodlarks, robins and a couple of red-backed shrikes, here near the westernmost limit of their range.

I got to Sarrance at around 11.30, making it a four-hour trek (with a half hour’s rest stop halfway). I thought I’d be far too early to check in, but one of the volunteers spotted me in the shade after the midday Mass and let me into the monastery to shower and wash my clothes, which was nothing short of bliss. Christian and Miguel showed up a couple of hours later, and we had a Leffe beer each at Miguel’s insistence while I counted raptors in the sky above. Within the space of half an hour I had clocked buzzards, honey buzzards, red and black kites, a booted eagle, kestrels and griffon vultures, all in the same airspace. No lammergeiers yet, but I’m keeping my eyes wide open for a sign of that diamond-shaped tail.

I spent most of the afternoon in the gardens, watching the vultures circling over the mountains. For about an hour there was a nearly constant drumroll of thunder to the south, but such is the natural wonder of the Pyrenees: the high mountains form one of Europe’s most imposing natural barriers, a great wall of stone that, throughout history, has cut the Iberian Peninsula off from the rest of Europe, dividing everything but the Basques and their language. A great belt of storm clouds had built itself up like mountains above the mountains, but it never did reach us here in Sarrance, breaking on the Spanish side like a besieging army. All we got was the wind, which was just what I needed after a long and hot walk.

The Premonstratensian fathers invited us to Vespers in their chapel before dinner, which was a warm and sociable affair. Christian and Miguel will take different route tomorrow, both by bus, so it may be that I find myself alone in Borce – I haven’t seen any other pilgrims on the road.

A quick leaf through the guestbook showed that the English are by far the least represented of all the nationalities on the Camino. I wonder why that is? Time was when we had one of the most famous pilgrim routes in Europe, the road to Saint Thomas A’Beckett’s tomb in Canterbury. What happened?

Naturally, we’re not a Catholic country, but I wonder if it’s deeper than that: after all, there are plenty of Europeans (and Americans) who do the Camino with no faith-oriented motivation whatsoever. Have we simply lost the culture of pilgrimage? The long and arduous journey on foot? Are we so wrapped up in our small island concerns and independence that the idea of schlepping across a landmass like Europe seems downright insane? I could name plenty of friends who consider themselves experienced walkers, but none of them has ever done the Camino. It’s not unheard of. It’s just not on our radar.

Anyway, that’s the first day of the Camino done! Only another forty-five or so to go! Here’s to them being mozzie-free, or I might just go mad. BB x

Black Sand and Starlight

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Caserío los Partidos, Tenerife. 8.19am.

Well, if that wasn’t the best sleep I’ve had in a week, I don’t know what a good sleep is. The four-hundred-year old stone walls of my room might not look like the cosiest setup, but it couldn’t be more enchanting: a log-burning stove in the corner, a skylight above the bed so you can see the stars from the comfort of your bed, and a warm shower… I’d have settled for less, especially after several hours’ hiking around the ash flow of Chinyero, but it was nothing short of heaven on my return.

Chinyero is the reason I’m here. This is the site of the last eruption in 1909, Chinyero being one of the vents of Teide, which looms over everything to the west. This is also Teide’s best side: from here, it is perfectly conical, like a child’s drawing of a volcano, and at this time of year you can still see the last traces of snow and ice in the deep gulleys running down its peak. Sure, the Roque Cinchado may have been a worthy candidate for one of the Top Ten sights of this trip, but what I really wanted to see here in Tenerife was the black sand forest: a natural marvel growing out of the destruction wrought by Teide over a hundred years ago. I was not to be disappointed.

It’s a two and a half hour circular hike from Caserío up into the ash fields, most of it very well signposted and all over well-trodden paths, though the hardened basalt and steep climbs make for slow going at times. I saw three or four cyclists and one other hiker far off, but compared to Teide National Park, it’s a much more personal experience of the mountain on this side of the island. Most of the hike takes place in the shade of the Corona Forestal, the crown of pine trees that ring the mountain (but especially its fertile north face). Some of the trees look like they still bear the scars and scorch marks of the fires that raged through here when Chinyero erupted, long ago.

Did you ever see Fantasia 2000 as a kid? This place reminds me of the Firebird sequence, which plays Stravinsky’s masterpiece as the backdrop to the eruption and rebirth of a volcano. It also gives off major Primeval and Walking with Dinosaurs vibes, which is true for at least one of those TV shows, as the final episode of the first season of Primeval was filmed on the almost identical ash fields of Gran Canaria. All three creations draw on an ancient force in an even older setting, and the black sands of Chinyero really do feel like a walk back in time – if not on the surface of another planet.

There are very few mammals native to Tenerife, as is often the case with island fauna, which usually specialises in creatures with fins or wings (or those that had wings, once upon a time). I saw a couple of rabbits during my hike, which accounts for the presence of buzzards in these forests, but besides that, the ash fields seem almost deserted, unless you listen closely. The island’s canaries were singing away in the treetops, along with a few goldcrests, treecreepers, chiffchaffs and the local Canarian race of great tits. I counted at least three woodpeckers drumming at different frequencies on the descent, though I only saw one. Best of all was a brief encounter with a blue chaffinch, a special bird found only on the islands of Tenerife and Gran Canaria and only above the tree line. Tracking it by its call, I tried imitating it to get its attention, and it came to have a look. I got pretty close, but it must have thought me a very strange chaffinch indeed.

Meanwhile, to the north, the island seems to fall away into the sea, disappearing beneath the clouds. We really are very high up here.

The views on the climb back down to Caserío are breathtaking, especially at the end of the day when the sun is beginning to sink into the Atlantic to the west. Stand at just the right spot and you can see the neighbouring islands of La Gomera and La Palma, flanking the Teno mountains on the westernmost point of Tenerife. I don’t know much about La Palma, but La Gomera harbours an otherworldly rainforest in its centre, the Garajonay National Park, full of gnarled and twisted trees and trailing beards of moss and lichen. If I should return, that would be near the top of my list.

I had a well-earned dinner and a glass of wine back at Caserío, the last of which very nearly knocked me out – perhaps that explains the long sleep. But I did hold on to my senses long enough to properly appreciate the other thing I came all the way out here to see (not just to Chinyero, but the Canaries as a whole): the night sky. The English fixation with security and LED lighting means it’s hard to get an unpolluted view of the stars anywhere in the country (outside of Northumberland, anyway), since we seem to delight in stringing glaring yellow street lamps along our roads like fairy lights, and filling our towns and cities with floodlights.

Out here, however, the lighting is less pervasive and restricted to the larger cities. And up here in the mountains, there’s almost no lighting at all, so the stargazing is spectacular.

I didn’t see any shooting stars this time, but I’d be willing to bet that this is an incredible place to be at the peak of the Perseid meteor shower in the summer. I did count a number of constellations I haven’t properly seen before, blinking dimly behind the belt of Orion: Leo, Cancer, mighty Hercules and the Corona Borealis. And, of course, the full body of Ursa Major, not just the twinkling torso of the Plough.

My SLR would have struggled, but the iPhone did a remarkable job in the twilight. It may not be able to perform a quality zoom to save its life, but it does handle low light incredibly well.

Tomorrow is another day. Since I made it up to Chinyero a day early, I’ll take it easy. If I can, I’ll try to navigate round the south of the island to Santa Cruz for a change of scenery. I can’t say it’s the side of the island with the most appeal to me, being by far the more resort-heavy side, but that might make for something to write about in itself. But first, I have to find a bus to take me out of here – and that might be easier said than done! BB x

Tiny Wings

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

3rd October, 10.40pm. The Flat

The October half term holiday came to a rather unorthodox end this evening with a last minute trip into town to catch a talk by celebrated English nature-writer, John Lewis-Stempel, on his latest release: England: A Natural History. It isn’t every day you get to meet people who you have grown up reading, and as this is a year for saying yes to things, why not? I came away with a signed copy and a really interesting chat with the author about the importance of names – not just the scientific names of the animals and plants around us, mind, but the old English names that are disappearing even faster than some of the creatures themselves: you might have heard of a peewit or yaffle, or possibly even a dumbledore, but would you know a bumbarrel or cuddy bear* if they were sitting in a tree in your garden? (Answers at the end!)

I’m feeling much recharged after ten days’ leave. These boarding school terms really do knock the stuffing out of you, though as I like to say, I’m happiest when I’m up to my eyeballs – it leaves less time for dwelling on things. I left it a little late for any far-flung adventures this year, but I did make it to Dartmoor a few nights back, taking advantage of the last few days of the public bus service that crosses the moors before they shut down over the winter.

Why Dartmoor? Possibly because it’s arguably easier to get to by public transport than Exmoor, which is a lot closer, but mainly because I had an insatiable itch to see the legendary Wistman’s Wood, a tiny sliver of temperate rainforest nestled deep in the heart of the national park. It popped up in a number of ghost stories I read a while back and again in Guy Shrubsole’s The Lost Rainforests of Britain. The desire to see that last fragment of the Great Wood that once covered this island ended up pressing against the inside of my skull like Wistman’s own stunted trees.

I was holding out for mist and fog, but I had neither. The weather was actually remarkably pleasant for fickle Dartmoor, so instead of mirk and mystery I was treated to soft clouds and sunlight through the ancient branches; the kind of warm glow that Tolkien bestowed for a moment upon Fangorn Forest, an ancient wood of his own design. Did he pass through here, I wonder? His faithful illustrator Alan Lee certainly must have done at some point.

Just as it sits in a valley in the innermost chamber of Dartmoor’s heart, so too is Wistman’s Wood at the heart of much of Dartmoor’s folklore. It is said to be haunted by the spirit of a terrier who can still be heard scampering through the boulders, while by night it is prowled by the far more sinister wisht hounds, a local variant of the hell-hound myth that can be found across the British Isles, from the gytrash and Barghest to the Beast of Bodmin. The wisht hounds were believed to be kennelled in Wistman’s Wood by Old Crockern himself, the ancient pagan spirit of the moor whose foreboding tor rides the crest of the hills a short distance to the west of the woods.

There were no malevolent spirits during my brief stay, of course – at least, none that I could see from my perch atop a boulder on the fringes of the forest (visitors are no longer allowed to enter the wood proper, so as to protect the longevity of this sacred and truly unique ecosystem). But that is not to say the place was lifeless: quite the contrary, in fact. There was no wind, but the trees were alive with rustling leaves that turned out to be the beating of tiny wings. In the space of a single minute I clocked three species of tit (blue, great and coal), blackbirds, redwings, wrens, robins, tiny treecreepers and the truly pint-sized goldcrest, our smallest native bird. I haven’t seen a forest so alive in a long time. Even the air itself felt different, a fact that would have been obvious to all but the senseless by the thick, mossy lichen growing on every surface, a perfect natural yardstick for a healthy forest.

I spent the next five hours or so wandering in a wide arc around the surrounding moorland, following a rather makeshift path swiped from the internet the night before. I haven’t hiked around Dartmoor since I was at primary school, so I’d forgotten that, up on the moors, river crossings are often not bridges but rows of stepping stones. Which are a delightful challenge in balmy summer weather, no doubt, but something of a roadblock after the first heavy rains of autumn. I made the tactical decision to not tempt fate and so I took off boots, rolled my trousers up to my knees and waded across.

I hardly need to point out that Dartmoor’s rivers are devilishly chilly – and surprisingly deep. I was just shy of the other bank when the water came almost up to my waist. Thank goodness I’d brought a spare pair of trousers, or I’d have had a very wet hike back to the inn!

Luckily, as I crested the hills due south of Two Bridges, the sun came out to guide me home. It seemed to turn the grass to gold, in a wave that washed down the hillside until I was stranded in an ocean of golden blades. I straggled up to the Crock of Gold, a small stone-strewn vantage point where, as if on cue, a shining rainbow daubed itself across the grey sky to the north. No leprechauns on this occasion, but I got my gold one way or another.

Well, I’d better put down my proverbial pen and get some sleep. Back to work tomorrow, and another busy term awaits! BB x

*Bravo for holding out for the answers! A peewit is of course a lapwing, a yaffle is a green woodpecker and a dumbledore is a bumblebee, while cuddy bear and bumbarrel are old English names for the wren and long-tailed tit respectively! Go figure!