There are Similarities between The Picos de Europa, Spain and 354 Blue Rock Road, New Zealand

The similarities between The Picos de Europa and 354 Blue Rock Road

Twenty-four years ago we had an amazing 10 day walk in the Picos de Europa, and experienced Mirador de Ordiales, The Carres Gorge, Naranjo de Bulnes and a lightning show to shame the fireworks put on by London City Council on New Year’s Eve.  It was through stunning big hills, massive orange coloured rock faces, views that you had to be buried at to be able to savour for ever (as did Senor Ordiales), a million-metre-deep gorge with a path hewn out of the rock for us tourists to walk along and high level farmers who make cheese.

 
The Carres Gorge in Spain made in millions of years        Our own Carres Gorge, made in 9 hours.

We stopped at the tiny drystone buildings, be taken into the totally unsterile cheese dairy and larder (with no sign of any lard) and select our goat or sheeps cheese.

The night of the lightening display, put on solely for our benefit, as we camped in a rock bowl high up in the mountains, with the wind rushing around trying to pull the tent from our tightly clenched fists, it rained and rained, just as it has been doing here; 84 mm rain in 36 hours.

                                                        Hmmmmm that piece of tree isn’t meant to be there

  

What, you may be wondering, has any of this got to do with moving to a totally new lifestyle in Blue Rock Road.  It’s all to do with conjuring up memories.

A week ago, it was all so calm, meek and mild, just as it was back at the café in Asturias.  We walked off into the mountains, lulled into a sense of false security.  I’d fed the chickens, had a meaningful chat, usually the only good one I get, with the sheeps.  I wondered where the ducks had gone, sometimes they wander off over a km away.  I avoided a spit from the loving alpacas as I offered them zinc laced pellets; in the culinary world of and alpaca that is a delicacy.  As you know an alpaca spit is a term of endearment.

   

Guests come for tea.

The tent was well pegged in and on the horizon the best lightning display started.  Slowly it got closer, we snuggled up in our sleeping bags, books completed and torches off.  It started to rain and yes, it rained, and the wind howled.

Four weeks ago, in 12 hours we had 40 mms of rain, 10 mms of that falling in 2 hours.  There was a memorable similarity as we woke with the wind roaring around, with how couldn’t sleep in 1998 when we had to hold on to the tent to stop it from taking us to Madrid with us hanging on like a paraglider.  Our 12 new solar panels were still on the roof, none of the holes that had been drilled to keep them on leaked.  A few trees had blown down. 

 

The sheeps decided that the best place for the 4 of them was to be snuggled up in the woodshed.  They’d booked into the Woodshed Hyatt and the wood chip mattress was pure luxury.

The river at the bottom of the Carres Gorge was crystal clear, and upstream walkers splashed around to cool off after the walk.  We tried to walk through our woods, but the stream was impassable.  We went down to the river and a white-water kayak wouldn’t have been out of place.  It was in spate and that reminded me of the time when I worked with young hoodlums in the Lake District, in 1978.  The river Brathay was in spate, I issued us all with a life jacket, pair of boots, helmet and inner tube.  Of course, a full safety and risk assessment was performed so we went to the bridge up stream and jumped in.  Such fun!  “Mister, mister, can we do it again” and who was I to stop such enjoyment.  Ali didn't want to do it here.

   

  

Stranded by the flood.

Following this passing shower that took a good while to pass a lot of our drive, which started life at the top of the hill, ended up at the bottom of the hill.  We spent a day wheelbarrowing it back to where it came from.  The next passing shower simply took it all back to where it came from.  The big digger did a better job than we did, in a tenth of the time.

What do you do with your time on such a day?  Under Naranjo de Bulnes we slept having done a night on watch.  We walked away leaving the towering orange dome behind us.  As we descended, we came into the summer pastures and the cheese ‘shop’.  However, at 354 the fire was lit, and out came the cheese making gear. 4 litres of milk, vegetarian rennet, culture and the rest.  Warming the milk, setting, cutting the curd, stirring, draining and pressing. Four weeks later the brie is brilliant, the cheddar delicious to chomp on, blue rock blues still to be tried, halloumi fries well and is squeaky on the bite, N Zeta feta is fantastic and the ricotta ridiculously ravishing.

          

Then the wind dropped, and the sun came out as if nothing had ever happened and suddenly, we were back to our normal routine.  The night skies cleared and off we went to our weekly star gazing class.  The weather can be so different even over 20 kilometres, we found the class in the park but couldn’t find the stars.  The clouds came in.  Anticipation was tempered a tad when we saw that our teacher, New Zealand’s very own female Patrick Moore with all of his exuberant enthusiasm had only 1 telescope and a few pairs of binoculars for 14 of us.  I wanted a guaranteed viewing of the cheese maker on the moon.  Anyway, we have seen StarLink and Venus at midday.

   

When does the definition of ‘lamb’ become redundant? In 3 weeks, it will be their first birthday and a cake of sheep nuts, straw and powdered milk will be delivered with greater ceremony than the one that was simply “thrust in front of” the ‘has been’ and ‘wannabee’ in No 10.  But the sheeps are great, they always like to help and unless they are eating, sleeping of chewing their cud, they are always happy to chat in a sheepish kind of way.  They are my therapists, and you know that I need a lot of therapy.  They are especially keen to assist with chicken o’clock feeding time.  The problem is that not much of the food gets to the chickens, but I can’t be mad with them because I know their intention is good and they are so lovable.

 

As you can see, they are keen to help load the wheel barrow and cause a compost avalanche.  

Always happy to help me in the workshop; or maybe look for sheep pellets.

 

Jack is checking H & S requirements have been met in the electricians van, and that she has brought all the necessary equipment to put our solar panels up.  In all her years as an electriccian in the area, Penny had never experienced such stringent safety checks.

The most recent public holiday, Matariki, which is kinda like New Year for Maori and the lovely thing about it is that at last it isn’t a public holiday reflecting the judgements of the colonisers.  It is based on the position of a cluster of stars through which we navigate ourselves during the next year.  Of course, the stars move so every year the public holiday will be different.  It’s a time of fun and socialising, so I took it upon myself to organise a tennis tournie at the local tennis club.  Everyone played 21 games, everyone scored points and with points come prizes.  Everyone won a prize.  If only life was so egalitarian.

           

Nadal and Raducanu on the outside court.

What else has been going on?  We heard about the searing heat in Europe and whilst it is a pretty comfy 12 degrees here, I do live in my world of anxiety with the fear of a fire here in the summer.  We’ve got 50000 litres of water and a fire engine at least 30 minutes away.  We’ve installed our own fire hose, and I can assure you that the photo shows that and not my own hose unhampered by enlarged prostate.  The 2 are of course difficult to differentiate.

  

This happens to be a sagittal plane through the vegetable ‘choko’       and not my prostate.

Oh, but catastrophe happened in New Zealand, a catastrophe of epic proportions.  We went to watch The All Blacks play a strange game called rugby, against Eire.  As I don’t have anything black in my wardrobe, I had to go in green.  Eire won!!

Does anyone want 2 tickets to see ABBA.  In all the rain, mud and quagmire someone decided the thing to do was to do a 'Glamorous Gum Boots' competition.  Here are a few of the entries fro people I don't know.

   

 

The walk in the Picos, like all good walks, came to a safe end, with moments of fun and anxiety in equal amounts.  The sun is now out, the river gone down, anxiety levels dropped, and occasional fun has seeped back into the days.  I’m hoping that unlike the walk in the Picos, my walk around our patch of paradise hasn’t yet come to an end despite the visit from an unwanted visiting virus.  We are writing our will and being buried somewhere with such a spectacular view as that at the Mirador de Ordiales seems a comfortable idea.  I mean if Marquess of Villaviciosa de Asturias (Spanish: Marqués de Villaviciosa de Asturias) which is a hereditary title in the Peerage of Spain, granted in 1892 by Maria Christina of Austria on behalf of her underage son Alfonso XIII to Pedro José Pidal, in recognition of his services and those of his father, Alejandro Pidal y Mon, President of the Senate of Spain.^[2][3],               Why can’t I?

 

I’m off to find my resting place!  That’s quite a nice view, innit? 

The flies have found their resting place, either in the duck or in the fire.  We have swept up many every day for months.  To ducks it is ‘caviar’.  They just can’t get enough, and we just get too many.

And if you want a different perspective on the same thing, or some more pictures you could look at Ali's version of what we are doing:

https://richetal.wordpress.com/