Carrizos is a three bedroom bungalow set in around a hectare of land, the property is available for short term rent, this blog is to provide an insight into the house, garden and surrounding area. This image is a sunrise in Winter taken from the bathroom window. If you have any queries about the property please send a comment. Click on any image to enlarge.

Saturday 3 December 2011

fragas do Eume

Calling it a walk is a bit tame, it was an adventure. All of the images are mapped via Panoramio onto Google Earth locations, click on the link above to go to Panoramio.

There is a nice little map on a bit of slate stuck to the wall of the dam, it has some relation to the reality but not a lot, it suggests 2 1/2 hour round trip with some high dangerous bits and turned out to be over 5 hours with a lot of high dangerous bits, only worth a go if you like edging your way across cliff faces clinging to cables while goats kick little showers of rocks at you or stepping carefully along wet slimy paths little wider than your own two feet with hundreds of vertical meters above and below. I think it would be a lot safer on a dry day...

4 of these were looking into the turning space at the edge of the dam when I arrived, they smell awful.

This is the map stuck to the wall of the dam and gives a vague idea of the route sort of folded up on itself. Tiempo 2 1/2 hours - took me a tad over 5 although I did not rush and did get distracted here and there but I think you would need to jog the lot to do it in that time.
Danger zone - not an understatement, if you have wild young children turn back now :-0
Handy sawn off metal spikes variously either buried in the undergrowth at the edge or right in the middle of the path.

The steps get steeper and steeper and slippery, there is a sort of keep your eye out for Gollum atmosphere about the pool but its better to keep your eyes on your feet and the path ahead.
A lovely place for a swim on a Summer day I imagine.
There are many opportunities to look down with out having to leave the path.
Doesn't look to dangerous in the pic but the path has been wiped out by falling slabs and a handy cable is now pinned to the rock to hold on with, the far end of the cable is pinned to the few slabs that have not yet fallen, not a good place to play Hannibal and take an elephant for a walk. 
That is the far end of the cable and the little ledge I had just stopped being on, goats threw stones at me as I crossed; they missed, gulp ha ha err gulp, I thought and walked on.
Knee deep in leaves this canal winds its way along high above the valley floor. The path is along the top of the wall for much of the first hour of the journey. The wall is built on the edge of a cliff for most of the first hour of the journey. Sat by the little house and burned my lip on the home made veg stew I had in my Berghaus flask, ate some stew, walked on then got burned again an hour later when I ate some more, excellent flask, stew not bad either.
The canal wall you walk along can be seen far right near the bottom, you may need to click on the photo a few times to zoom in, it passes behind a tree or two then you can see a dot where the tunnel starts, it cuts through the buttress and comes out in the trees a few hundred meters later. The path heads off around the cliff, its not very wide but is very high and edgy. After the trees the path exits stage left below that rock chute looking bit. I wonder why they build a canal there, at times I wondered why I decided to walk along it.
It started peeing down, so I took shelter in that tunnel and was drawn in, at first my feet stayed just dry then just wet then I was in over my knees finding my way by the flash on the camera. That bright dot is the light at the end of the tunnel. I found the first of the occasional clusters of bats by brushing them with my head, this lot seemed to stay asleep despite the camera flash.
 I almost picked up my flute when I left home, wished I had; the acoustics were good, the flute would have been better than my grunting out bits of The Lewis bridal song: 
Step it gaily, on we go
Heel for heel and toe for toe,
Arm in arm and row on row
All for Mairi's wedding.
While I checked the depth of the water by Flash.
This lot did not even open an eye as far as I could see. Two to the left and two to the right and one in front by itself - formation sleeping.
And the sun had come out as I came out of the dark into another green world.
More rain so a bit with no photos then just as I was thinking this has to be a couple of hours and it has not started to circle back, it did and lead me up a lovely ancient old track.
After the track is some road then back to views - wow kind of views.
Goats pretending they did not throw stones nor never would, I did not believe them. I saw a lot of goats, they look kind of like they think they are cool and they look confident skittering about in silly places where they really should be belayed on the cliffs but I saw 5 separate lots of goat bones just on or near to the path, they may be reckless, feckless fools who fall off a lot when no one is looking. Most of the ones I saw were fairly young.
Getting closer to the quarry the main path runs way above it but there are others that skirt the top.
I guess a tiny narcissus, extremely shiny and tiny daffodil.
The path is a lot easier up here
Lovely flowers in this strange little dam.
The lovely flowers there are thousands of them less than 1 cm across living in the stream here.
I couldn't work out why there was a tiny dam across this stream or why there is a big bung in a big hole above a lower pipe. I would not like to be the chap who takes the plug out.
Then a big rocking rock it didn't move when I tried but looks like it could be rocked by a few people, rather near a big drop though. The more I look at it the more it looks like an alien ant head.
Not sure what it is but just as I was thinking wow wilderness no windmills, this appeared.
Paths are very well marked not much chance of going off track, reminded me a bit of Dwayne Dibley and his spray can.
Not sure if these are heathers but they look like tree type of heathers and are in full flower in mid March
And close up they almost look like heather

And then it started raining again so no more photos.



Saturday 22 October 2011

Feedback

Notes left in the house 2011-2012
Please add a comment if you would like to leave further feedback


1. Thank you very much we had a wonderful week in your house. The weather was really fine. The countryside, the beaches, the whole region from Ferrol to Ortigueira was very beautiful under the summer weather. It only started to rain today when we are leaving.


S+I
July 2011
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2. We had a lovely time in the village is very tranquil and the lake is beautiful to see every day from the garden. Playas are very quiet and safe in July Vilarrube is so wonderful. The children enjoyed the very large garden for adventures.


Jose
July 2011
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We enjoyed the quiet house and how near it is to the surf, 10 minutes in the car and we were watching the Pantin Classic.
Alba
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Lovely peaceful location, with a general store and cafe/bar in walking distance, more shops and supermarkets 10-15 mins away in Valdovino or Cedeira on the coast. Only a short drive to so many beautiful golden sandy beaches - whether you want to surf, kayak, kite, swim or simply soak up some sun there's somewhere within a few mins drive to suite everyone. We often had the whole beach to ourselves as an extra bonus. The lake was great for an evening stroll or kayak and has some tasty trout. We found some lovely riverside walks and did the spectacular treck in the Fragas do Eume from the Dam. San Andres de Texiedo is well worth a visit there are some lovely cliffside walks around it on ancient tracks. We plan to visit again next year.
Kat and Chris Sept 2011
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There are plenty of good places for fishing or catching octopus. The beaches were very quiet and the water at Vilarrube quite warm. The house was very peaceful and the garden is huge. Thank you for letting us use the house.
Pete and Andrea
October 2011

Thursday 12 May 2011

Ribadeo

About 40 mins drive away are a couple of lakes near As Pontes, there is good walking around them but  here is a little journey on the water.

We parked one car at each end and had a great few hours. The pics got mixed up I have no idea who took what. These little refugios are picnic areas with fireplaces benches and a roof are scattered around Galicia often by rivers in my experience.
 This is very like the ancient bridge near Porto do Son very pretty and fairly precarious to take a horse and cart over.
 Must revisit and try out the fireplace one day
 Hundreds of these tiny flowers at the starting point and along the river too.
In the water and off we go with no idea what we are going to find

Alejandro was in a surfski slightly unstable but better at the river than we imagined it would be.
 Well some of the time it was - the times when Alej was on top were better for him but less funny for us you prob need to click and zoom in on that one.
Jose dared to keep a camera out down one lumpy bit - it was tame and safe but fun, ideal for introducing children to river work.
It just kept on being pretty for ages 200 meters of tranquil, 40 of fast and then back to tranquil.
New leaves on the trees along with the flowering gorse and heather were breathtaking 
 
The good thing about rivers is you can just sit and let the river do the work

A cloudy few minutes for lunch... although it was more for Alej to warm up a bit after his third caer.
Not sure if Alej was flagging or sunbathing 
  The abandoned village I walked around last time was well underwater but there was a ruin above one of our stopping places a huge house compared with the tiny ones I found before.
The river opens out into a wide lake after a few kilometers and suddenly there was loads of squally wind, paddling slowed down a tad, and the cameras stayed in their bags for an hour or so but the wind died down a bit as we did the last few km.
And no one took any photos of us getting out.

Club nautico and the lake

On the other side is another world full of pirates and and an army of monsters apparently, it got very dark then a bit lighter and we paddled home by the light of a silvery moon but forgot to take photos

We got out on the water a bit earlier the next day and landed on a pirate island inhabited by large ducks and little else


Thursday 5 May 2011

Property overview

The main house is called Os Carrizos, these are song birds and there is usually a lovely chorus of birdsong in the mornings with thrushes, linnets, sparrows, blackbirds, a range of finches and tits, green woodpeckers and many more small birds. Eagles, buzzards and occasionally sparrow hawks can also be seen.

The house is a three bedroomed bungalow with a very large attic space that has external access and could be developed into accommodation.

There is an open garage to the side with power and light, it is not huge but is large enough to fit our high topped 4X4 people carrier.  We had thought maybe one day to put patio doors across the front and East facing windows to make it a sheltered morning sort of conservatory.

There is a quiet road to the North side of the property, 5 minutes (2.8km) down the road is Vilarrube beach and the rest of the coastline. The driveway has two gateways and room to park 4 or more cars outside. It is possible to drive round the side of the house into the garden, there is more covered space on the South side of the property which can be used for parking.

 Adjacent to the drive there is a garden with a large granite table, a productive grape vine, roses, banana plants, angels trumpets, lavender and many other plants make this an attractive place to sit. The water pump is also sited here it draws water from a 40 meter deep borehole, the pump unit was renewed in 2010 and is the best marque available; Bomba Taca.

Adjacent to the house is a commercial property and other built spaces, these are described on a separate page.

The plot covers over 8000sq meters and is two separate lots with a strip down the West making up around a quarter of the whole land area. This was fenced off but the fence was removed and it is now one large plot. It would be possible to apply for planning permission to construct a further dwelling on the West plot.

There is a chain link fence on the North, West and South boundaries and a quiet country road borders the North East and South. This provides good delineation of the boundaries. By quiet I mean probably around  20 - 50  cars / tractors, mopeds etc and a few cows pass by on an average day. Occasionally a small herd of sheep, a donkey cart and an ox cart can be seen and some of the local residents take a daily paseo.

Wednesday 4 May 2011

Pantin

After a long hard day I headed off to twang my guitar to the sunset above Pantin, I went a little further along one of my favourite tracks and found a good place to park.
Floods of thrift Ahhh
Oh blimey I hope I left it in Park with the handbrake firmly on, there is no sense of edginess when you park.
Lovely sunset, by the time I had finished twanging and loving Galicia it was pitch black on a moonless night, reversing up the barely defined track to somewhere safe to turn round was less than easy.

Monday 2 May 2011

San Andres do Teixido

Carrizos is located a few minutes walk off the camino that runs from Ferrol to San Andres do Teixido just up the road from A Capela da Fame. http://www.valdovino.com/comun/SUB-PAGINAS/sanandres.html We have enjoyed walking from the house to San Andres but I did not have a lot of time to spare today so after a busy day back at work and a few hours house sorting I decided to drive there. San Andres is about a 20 minutes my car, its not far just is a winding slow road but passes through some lovely scenery with cows...
 ...and with flowers...

... and rocks and trees.
The cliffs a little further on are the highest sea cliffs in Europe, they are plenty high enough just here but fitting in time to continue round on the road round to Cabo Ortegal is also well worth a trip.
If you don't visit in your lifetime you will visit after death is the thing people say about it, I am not quite sure what that signifies. Here is the info in Gallego.
San Andres is the little cluster of buildings down in the distance tucked snugly into the cliffside, it is almost as important as the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostella. There is a lovely walk down from the cliff top car park or you can park down at the bottom.
With a bit of a zoom you can see the famous church and where the stalls usually are, there is usually some tacky tourist stuff for sale but there is also some lovely local honey. It was quiet today but can be heaving if you visit on the wrong day.
Behind me the hills were doing soft curvy things.
At my feet the squill is flowering and there is a lemony scent in the air to go with its parma violet one.
These little things are lovely a circle of hearts with a star in the middle ahhhh.
I stopped in at Cedeira on the way back for some shopping and timed the drive past Vilarrube just right as the sun set over the estuary at low tide