The Great White Hunter

We decided our reward for all the hard work on Meriva's hull,  was to hire a jeep and tour El Hierro. Although the buses and gua guas are brilliant for linking up, its easier not to be tied by time.

El Hierro is the smallest  of the Canary Islands with an area of 27km squared and is the most recent in its geological formation. The triangular shape is due to three rifts which form its spine, and over the years giant
landslides have created El Golfo, El Juan and Las Playas.




We decided to start our tour at the Valley of Las Playas viewpoint. After driving down an unmade road into the pine forest, we found we had the best internet connection to date.....in the middle of no where! The crescent shaped collapse is 5km in diameter and 1000metres high.

The views down to the Parador at Las Playas were spectacular....bit unnerving when we heard a loud bang followed by  the sound of falling rock.
Its hard to conceive the volume of material that has fallen into the sea creating this area.







The diversity of flora on the island is fantastic. Just in the small area around the view point.

Unfortunately I only bought one floral guide with me so latin names will be added at a later date!










The countryside is spectacular with meadows and a profusion of colour, dotted with the occasional hobbled cow. Hobbled because the walls here are so low.

We drove to El Garoe, the Sacred Tree  above a well which was the 'source ' of water for the island.

Water picked up by the trade winds condenses on the mountains and trees, known as horizontal rain, it collects in natural pools. The original tree was blown down in a hurricane in 1610.

The water from this Garoe tree was used by ancient islanders, the Bimbaches, until the 15th century. The current Laurel Tree was planted in the last century actually in the main pool, not above it. The pool had been filled with earth after it lost its clay lining.

We took a deserted road to Jinama but the view was obscured by low cloud.

Tristan had previously walked  from Sabinosa on the south west of the island to El Pinar on the east with Francoise, a fellow traveller and was keen to go back to see the area without knee hieght cloud.

View over El Golfo, the second of the rifts that has collapsed into the sea. Landslides have been happening in this area during the recent seismic activity.


We lunched at Frontera, one of the most seismically active parts of the island,  followed by the drive of our lives. The road from Frontera to Sabinosa and down towards the sea is 'scary' but that was nothing compared to the butt clenching road from Sabinosa along the coast to the Monumento Meridiano! Its a good job we did it when we did as this road is now closed due to the hundreds of earthquakes in the area over the last few days, the largest being 4.9 on the Richter scale. Sabinosa has  changed its GPS position by 2cm  during this last burst of seismic activity and the island has been raised by 11cm.

 View from the parador at Sabinosa towards the area of El Hierro that is currently most volcanically active. Most of the earthquakes are out to sea.

 The scree slopes are very unstable at the moment as magma is being pushed under the island triggering landslides

Monitoring seismic activity

The road disappears and its difficult to see where you are going.....no safety barriers here!

Mirador de  Lomo Negra II at 260 m . Some of the rocks have a bluish tinge due to sea water coming in contact with very hot lava......very pretty.


We followed the road around the coast towards El Juan, the third collapsed rift.

View over El Juan.

The choice was to visit the Orchilla Lighthouse or the Meridian Monument. We opted for the latter. The road disappeared and went into a  cinder track. The tracks osteopaths love!

The Meridian monument marked the spot where one of the many meridians existed before being moved to Greenwich.















From here we meandered back to La Restinga through the pine forests.

Weird things turn up here  like giant floating orange squash bottles!

Our time in La Restinga is nearlly over. It has been an unforgetable experience. We have been covered in Saraha Dust during a Calima, experienced my first earthquake and survived hurricane force winds whilst being propped up in trees,acroprops and oil drums.
We have savored the delights of  Pastor de Oveja and El Tomillar, Quesadilla, and fresh fish  from the local Pescadores Cooperative.

We have met some wonderful people who have a fantastic lifestyle on a 'tranquil' island.