6 October

It was a long wait at the baggage carousel in Palma airport while the baggage handlers sheltered from a torrential downpour which soaked some of our bags. The rain had stopped by the time we finally got into the arrivals hall to be met by our guide for the week, Jaume. With the six of us in his people-carrier and our bags in his wife’s we were driven to the front door of our hotel in Estellencs.

We – that’s Clive, Gerry, Jonathan, Nicky, Tony G and me – were going to walk the GR221, Mallorca’s first and currently only long distance path. It runs the length of the chain of mountains along the north-west coast of the island, the Serra Tramuntana. For the first three days we’d return to the hotel each night. On Thursday our walk would end near the Sanctuary at Lluc: our bags would be taken there and we would stay there for the last three nights.

At a meeting before dinner Jaume explained that there had been a major forest fire earlier in the year that had devastated a large swathe of countryside around Andratx, the normal starting point of the trail. It would be unpleasant to walk that part of the route, and unsafe too since burnt branches and dead trees could fall at any time. Instead we’d start at Es Capdellà and join the GR221 later in the day.

We’d need food for lunches and snacks. Jaume had warned us that we wouldn’t be able to shop for a couple of days, so he’d bought us each a pack of Serrano ham, a pack of cheese, two apples, two tomatoes and a loaf of wholemeal bread. That and a six litre bottle of water each should be enough! We carried the food and water to our rooms and headed for dinner in the hotel.

For more information about the hotel see the note on page 7.