Day 63: Amposta

October 28, 2023

Heart

Comment

Our idea for today was to circle around the Ebro Delta natural park, basically looking for birds. The Ebro Delta is only 1/3 the size of the Camargue, but it is still one of the largest wetlands in Europe.

The delta is criss crossed by irrigaton canals, and one runs right by our hotel. It earned a snapshot because Dodie liked the railing.

These nearby balconies also earned a shot, for Janice Branham.

We set off south of the river, heading east, mainly because a cycle route was provided along that way. We had originally intended to go first to the three lakes in the south, but we were lured by the signage along the river. The route was really nice, and in fact cycling anywhere in the Delta was nice, but it was frankly a little disappointing. There were point of interest signs along the way, but many were so faded they could not be read at all. Also hundreds of species of birds seemed to be promised, but strangely all along the wooded border of the main river we saw nary a bird of any type. I did photograph one starling, but true to the situation, he turned his back on me.

We hope we don't have to deal with those mountains!

Here is an illustration of signage that really needs work.

I took this picture out to the river because it is beautiful, but also to show that there is not a darn bird to be seen out there.

And this guy - is he a Black Redstart? But no red tail!

We must have turned a corner, or something, because now we started to see Egrets and Ibis, and Black headed Gull.

Dodie also spotted reeds with pink flowers, or egg clusters?

This really was a wonderful day, with pleasant temperature and basically car free paths and roads everywhere. The paths would run by little canals or along flooded fields or lakes. It was really fun.

The town of Els Muntells did have a little city hall and church, and we chose it to eat our sandwiches. Dodie had to work to keep me from calling it Els Muntels, since she thought that like paella it should be "Els Muntays". I liked the rhyming version better.

The little church. Some Spanish speaking (but not local) people came by to ask if we knew of a grocery in town. The GPS hintred at one but neither we not they ever found it.

Strangely a flock of pea fowl ran across the road in front of us. They seemed to be wild ones.

It seems like both males and females have the funny hats, while only the males have the peacock blue necks?

We went out toward the sea, hoping to spot flamingoes, but the spot we chose to pass through was way too wet.

The area close to the sea featured some luxurious looking houses

One had this wind turbine, which looked interesting for back home. Of course even installing something that looks simple like this would have complications - it would work best in conjunction with a battery, and if connected to the house would need a way to share power (or not) with the grid.

We entered an area that was without flooded fields, but still with interesting ground cover.

Here we are now by Lake Tancada, in the south.

We (Dodie) spotted one and only one flamingo in that area.

Aha, at last some flamingo in the distance

We continued, with so many water birds on all sides.

Just as our path forward was about to fail, as shown, Dodie came down with a flat in the rear - our first flat of any kind this trip. We looked for a shady spot to do the repair and came up with an abandoned house.

We succeeded with our trick of not removing the wheel, and not replacing the tube, but rather of looking for the puncture piecemeal. Dodie is good at spotting obscure leaks, so then we can patch them.

There was no real puncture, no thorn, but rather the Schwalbe tube has just given up at a seam in its construction. We patched it and that seemed ok, but a failing seam could fail again.

One of these things might not be like the others.

This is a hedge of canna lillies. At home just the bulbs for these are $5 each.

This was a really tall and dense stand of (date palms)?

We rolled back into Amposta, coming up on our hotel from the opposite direction from that we had left on. It had been a great circle tour of about 50 kms. We certainly did not see the hundreds of species of birds that they say are here, but in the end we really did feel we had passed through a bird rich wetland.

Today's ride: 53 km (33 miles)
Total: 3,151 km (1,957 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	6
Comment on this entry	Comment	0