Dots in the Landscape
It was with no small degree of reluctance that we’d left the peaceful sanctuary of the cliffside above Porto Moniz at the end of our first week aboard the Floating Garden. The well appointed home and the very best of hosts had been the cream in the proverbial pastel de nata at this most engaging of small seaside towns, where each day the Atlantic arrived at its thick protecting walls in furious volleys of white water and foam. From here, the cathedral like sea stacks of Janela were just a few moments’ drive away, and beyond that a sustained climb had taken us twice to the magnificently eerie Fanal Forest where almost human shapes came looming out of the fog to mesmerise our minds. The northern corner of the Floating Garden was a place that had more than delivered all of its promises, from the endless energy of the ocean to the delicacies of the small café up in the hills that Maribel had recommended. In truth, as we rolled down the mountain road into town to take lunch before heading across the island to Funchal, I wished we could stay where we were for the second week. Sometimes you arrive at a place and everything just seems to fit, doesn’t it?
But now we were doing that thing we so often do. It always seems a good plan at the time of booking to turn a fortnight’s holiday into a two centre stay, but whenever we suddenly have to uproot and move in the middle of things, the idea loses something of its appeal; especially so when the first base has proved so successful. Now we were heading for a cottage at a banana plantation somewhere just off the arterial road that runs across the capital and down beyond the airport towards Machico and Canical. And if you’ve ever driven along that wildly undulating road, you’ll know it can be exciting at times, especially around junctions when it’s busy and you’re driving an underpowered hybrid that can only just about pull the skin off a bowl of custard on the back of a following wind. Suffice to say I was glad to find exit number 7 and leave the runway without incident, and even more pleased when we eventually found the tell tale banana forest at the front gate of our home for the second half of the trip. As I get older and the self preservation instinct strengthens, I become ever more the reluctant motorist, and for the next week the drive down to and along the nearest thing the Floating Garden has to a motorway became something to fuel the most alarming daydreams. Sometimes the imagination is that little bit too vivid.
But of course we couldn’t spend the entire week hiding in the garden counting bananas, and the sketchy but scenic levada walk to the supermarket that would never pass a health and safety inspection at home was only going to hold a limited appeal. After all, we’d come here to retread those steps of sixteen years earlier, and make some new ones along the way too. On the first full day at base camp two we looked at the trail guide and settled on the Ponta de Sao Lourenco at the eastern tip of the island. I’d had a tip that this was an excellent sunrise location, although I knew that unless I started driving in my sleep, that was never going to happen, not even with the relatively late starts that the first few days of March might offer. But it seemed that an exciting walk towards the miradouro where the land became the sea was one we would both enjoy, especially if we headed into Machico and found a suitable feeding station first.
It was an adventure that soon brought further trepidation, as sitting at our waterfront table a brisk rainstorm raced down towards the town from the mountains, engulfing us in a deluge that had everyone racing into the bar and under neighbouring shop fronts for cover as the streets briefly became a shallow river delta. If anything like this happened while we were out on the trail later, there would be nowhere to hide on this cool breezy afternoon. But with everything dampened except for our resolve, we headed out of town, wheezing up another steep incline towards the edge of the island until the road ran out, arriving at the very last roundabout where we parked. From here we were on foot, dots in the landscape on the path to the distant miradouro. Much like that dreaded dual carriageway, the path fell and rose steeply, never level for more than a hundred yards or so, and as we progressed, the views began to open up. Views such as this one where the cliffs of the north east coast were suddenly revealed in a dreamy haze in openings between the nearby ones we’d walked across. In one place the route narrowed and the sea fell away beneath us on either side as we grasped the handrails firmly and looked straight ahead. And by degrees we finally passed the remote café that receives its supplies by boat from Canical, making one last sustained climb up to the miradouro, where a series of islets taper off into the Atlantic at the lonely lighthouse of the Ilheu do Farol. For a while this land belonged to just us two, gazing into the distance in every direction as we held onto our hats lest the wind carry them off to Tenerife or Gran Canaria. The effort to get here had been worth every step, even though we now had to retrace them all. As we made our way down off the headland a large group of youths headed in the opposite direction, some racing to get to the top first, others chatting along the way, and one at the back with his eyes glued to his phone as he walked. He may as well have been in a shopping arcade for all the attention he was paying to his surroundings.
On the way back we stopped a while to enjoy the views now and again. To the west, occasional dark curtains of rain hung over the landscape and sea, but being a distance from the mountains kept us dry on our isthmus. Rather lazily I’d left my tripod in the car; pathetic really, and this photo betrays that sloppy omission. In fact I’d rather you didn’t zoom in too closely if you don’t mind - just come along with us for the general sense of things instead. In mitigation I’d like to point out I was using the telephoto lens and it was more than a tad breezy out there on the cliffs. It might have helped if I’d selected my aperture more thoughtfully, but never mind eh? But even though it may be a bit rough around the edges, it’s an image that brings the memory of that day to life so powerfully, and one that captures the scale of this magnificent landscape. You can even see another tog making his way down the slope in the middle ground. I’m not sure what frightens me more; the sight of him walking down what looks to be a perilous ledge, or the realisation that it was in fact the path that we’d taken ourselves. Perspective does interesting things in a scene like this.
So while I curse myself at leaving the tripod in the boot of the custard skin tractor, I don’t regret presenting an image that transports us back to the colours and mood of that grey and blue afternoon on the trail. It seemed that wrenching ourselves from the comfort of Porto Moniz and moving across the Floating Garden to base camp two was already paying dividends. Maybe there was some sense in the master plan after all. With five days left on the Floating Garden we’d soon find out.
Dots in the Landscape
It was with no small degree of reluctance that we’d left the peaceful sanctuary of the cliffside above Porto Moniz at the end of our first week aboard the Floating Garden. The well appointed home and the very best of hosts had been the cream in the proverbial pastel de nata at this most engaging of small seaside towns, where each day the Atlantic arrived at its thick protecting walls in furious volleys of white water and foam. From here, the cathedral like sea stacks of Janela were just a few moments’ drive away, and beyond that a sustained climb had taken us twice to the magnificently eerie Fanal Forest where almost human shapes came looming out of the fog to mesmerise our minds. The northern corner of the Floating Garden was a place that had more than delivered all of its promises, from the endless energy of the ocean to the delicacies of the small café up in the hills that Maribel had recommended. In truth, as we rolled down the mountain road into town to take lunch before heading across the island to Funchal, I wished we could stay where we were for the second week. Sometimes you arrive at a place and everything just seems to fit, doesn’t it?
But now we were doing that thing we so often do. It always seems a good plan at the time of booking to turn a fortnight’s holiday into a two centre stay, but whenever we suddenly have to uproot and move in the middle of things, the idea loses something of its appeal; especially so when the first base has proved so successful. Now we were heading for a cottage at a banana plantation somewhere just off the arterial road that runs across the capital and down beyond the airport towards Machico and Canical. And if you’ve ever driven along that wildly undulating road, you’ll know it can be exciting at times, especially around junctions when it’s busy and you’re driving an underpowered hybrid that can only just about pull the skin off a bowl of custard on the back of a following wind. Suffice to say I was glad to find exit number 7 and leave the runway without incident, and even more pleased when we eventually found the tell tale banana forest at the front gate of our home for the second half of the trip. As I get older and the self preservation instinct strengthens, I become ever more the reluctant motorist, and for the next week the drive down to and along the nearest thing the Floating Garden has to a motorway became something to fuel the most alarming daydreams. Sometimes the imagination is that little bit too vivid.
But of course we couldn’t spend the entire week hiding in the garden counting bananas, and the sketchy but scenic levada walk to the supermarket that would never pass a health and safety inspection at home was only going to hold a limited appeal. After all, we’d come here to retread those steps of sixteen years earlier, and make some new ones along the way too. On the first full day at base camp two we looked at the trail guide and settled on the Ponta de Sao Lourenco at the eastern tip of the island. I’d had a tip that this was an excellent sunrise location, although I knew that unless I started driving in my sleep, that was never going to happen, not even with the relatively late starts that the first few days of March might offer. But it seemed that an exciting walk towards the miradouro where the land became the sea was one we would both enjoy, especially if we headed into Machico and found a suitable feeding station first.
It was an adventure that soon brought further trepidation, as sitting at our waterfront table a brisk rainstorm raced down towards the town from the mountains, engulfing us in a deluge that had everyone racing into the bar and under neighbouring shop fronts for cover as the streets briefly became a shallow river delta. If anything like this happened while we were out on the trail later, there would be nowhere to hide on this cool breezy afternoon. But with everything dampened except for our resolve, we headed out of town, wheezing up another steep incline towards the edge of the island until the road ran out, arriving at the very last roundabout where we parked. From here we were on foot, dots in the landscape on the path to the distant miradouro. Much like that dreaded dual carriageway, the path fell and rose steeply, never level for more than a hundred yards or so, and as we progressed, the views began to open up. Views such as this one where the cliffs of the north east coast were suddenly revealed in a dreamy haze in openings between the nearby ones we’d walked across. In one place the route narrowed and the sea fell away beneath us on either side as we grasped the handrails firmly and looked straight ahead. And by degrees we finally passed the remote café that receives its supplies by boat from Canical, making one last sustained climb up to the miradouro, where a series of islets taper off into the Atlantic at the lonely lighthouse of the Ilheu do Farol. For a while this land belonged to just us two, gazing into the distance in every direction as we held onto our hats lest the wind carry them off to Tenerife or Gran Canaria. The effort to get here had been worth every step, even though we now had to retrace them all. As we made our way down off the headland a large group of youths headed in the opposite direction, some racing to get to the top first, others chatting along the way, and one at the back with his eyes glued to his phone as he walked. He may as well have been in a shopping arcade for all the attention he was paying to his surroundings.
On the way back we stopped a while to enjoy the views now and again. To the west, occasional dark curtains of rain hung over the landscape and sea, but being a distance from the mountains kept us dry on our isthmus. Rather lazily I’d left my tripod in the car; pathetic really, and this photo betrays that sloppy omission. In fact I’d rather you didn’t zoom in too closely if you don’t mind - just come along with us for the general sense of things instead. In mitigation I’d like to point out I was using the telephoto lens and it was more than a tad breezy out there on the cliffs. It might have helped if I’d selected my aperture more thoughtfully, but never mind eh? But even though it may be a bit rough around the edges, it’s an image that brings the memory of that day to life so powerfully, and one that captures the scale of this magnificent landscape. You can even see another tog making his way down the slope in the middle ground. I’m not sure what frightens me more; the sight of him walking down what looks to be a perilous ledge, or the realisation that it was in fact the path that we’d taken ourselves. Perspective does interesting things in a scene like this.
So while I curse myself at leaving the tripod in the boot of the custard skin tractor, I don’t regret presenting an image that transports us back to the colours and mood of that grey and blue afternoon on the trail. It seemed that wrenching ourselves from the comfort of Porto Moniz and moving across the Floating Garden to base camp two was already paying dividends. Maybe there was some sense in the master plan after all. With five days left on the Floating Garden we’d soon find out.