Best Viewed With Any Browser

Gran Canaria 2008

In March 2008, I went to Gran Canaria for a walking holiday. It was a holiday organised by New Experience Holidays. Use the following link to get a description of their hotel to hotel trek in Gran Canaria.

Many of the routes for the trek have been put together by Roger Bradley. He is the local support for New Experience Holidays. He is from the UK but he and his wife are now living in Gran Canaria. He is extremely enthusiastic about walking in Gran Canaria. Use the following link to see Roger's pages about walking in Gran Canaria.

Click on the following links to find a map and photos for each day of my holiday. The map indicates where I went as recorded by my Garmin eTrex.

day date route map photos
Day 01 Tue 18th March 2008 Firgas to Fontanales map photos
Day 02 Wed 19th March 2008 Finca de Tirma (Tamadaba) to Cruz de Tejada map photos
Day 03 Thu 20th March 2008 Cruz de Tejada to La Lechuza map photos
Day 04 Fri 21st March 2008 La Lechuza to Camaretas; Pico de las Nievas to San Bartolome map photos
Day 05 Sat 22nd March 2008 San Bartolome to Fataga map photos
Day 06 Sun 23rd March 2008 Santa Lucia to Guayadeque map photos

Here are some notes about the walking on the last day of my holiday.

Although the weather was OK when I started walking, the mist came down once I got into the hills. I thought about turning round a few times.

The mist/fog was getting thicker/nearer as I walked onwards and upwards. When I got to a white house with a red tiled roof, I was meant to refer to a photo that was in my walking notes. It showed which way to go next and showed both the white house with the red tiled roof and a cliff that has a cave house. However, the photo was not much use, as I was unable to see the cliff that has the cave house, although it did confirm that I was approaching the house from the right direction. (Later as a result of me not looking after the photo all the inks ran as a result of the wetness and it's now an artistic colourful mess with no sign of any house or anything else!)

The notes told me to walk northwards from the house. They helpfully gave me the lat-long of a T junction with an East-West path. Without this lat-long I would not have succeeded in doing the walk. However, after roughly walking north across country for some time, I didn't see any footpaths.

So I decided first to get the latitude right on my GPS unit and then keeping the lat on the same value I walked west to get the longitude right. The terrain up there makes it easy to do this. It's sort of ploughed ground with some walls.

Although the first time I did this manoeuvre I got distracted by what I thought was the junction and wasn't and so both lat and long were wrong, with my second more disciplined attempt I succeeded. So I was at the junction with the path that goes West-East. I was elated.

Here I was amused about the bit in the notes which says "here are also wonderful views both up and down the Guayadeque valley which you can now see for the first time". I saw nothing of the valley as it was full of mist!

I'm new to GPS and so I was pleased that my technique for finding the junction had succeeded. However, I wondered whether I should be returning. I thought about it. I was a bit apprehensive about finding the white house with the red tiled roof again, as although it is south from this point I thought it might be easy to miss it if the fog had got worst there. I'd failed to get its lat-long when I passed it which would have been sensible.

I had a signal for my mobile and so I also thought about ringing the local organiser for advice but I thought he wouldn't really be in much of a position to advise as he couldn't see how foggy it was.

I moved on thinking that I might be returning later. The note's lat-long values were also useful for the next two Y junctions. At the third Y junction, the one with some caves with nice gardens and allegedly "with spectacular views" (!), I had a break, food and drink, and again wondered whether I should return. I was halfway. I thought that the mist would go away lower down and so preservered.

From here down, the mist did not go away: it persisted, and later turned into rain. Thankfully, all the references to walking towards the invisible airport were also accompanied by the word "eastwards". One of these also mentions that you are heading towards a large dead tree but because of the mist I had to hold that thought in my mind until I got closer to it! I was also very thankful for the lat-longs in the notes and the green dots. If I hadn't see a green dot for a little while I would stop and then walk very slowly looking around both forwards and backwards for one!

Needless to say, when I got to the end, I was very pleased to having achieved today's walk.