Mellieha Town, Selmun Palace, Ghajn Hadid WatchTower, Blata I-Bajda and Mistra Bay
.For a map of the route click icon.
Selmun Palace.
From here we followed a lovely trail/lane with
fields on both sides, which were being cultivated
by local farmers, who gave us a cheerful wave as we
went past. The further we went along this trail the
more it tended to descend and the views of the
coast and sea improved. The sun was out. There were
flowers everywhere.
This photograph was
taken on the way to Ghajn Hadid Watch Tower,
or Qwara Tower,which is located on the high point
in the distance.
At one point the trail descended very steeply and
we negotiated zig zags, first left and then right.
Without them the trail would have been far too
steep for vehicle traffic. Soon after we reached a
T-junction. I realised if we went right we would
have returned to Selmun Palace passing close to
Fort Campbell, which had been a British Army
Barracks. However, our route was left, but the
track we followed soon petered out at the top of a
cliff where a number of cars were parked.
From here we were very near to Ghajn Hadid Watch
Tower – also called the Qwara Tower on some maps -
which we had seen most of the way from Selmun
Palace. So we left the path and walked across what
can be best described as a limestone rock garden to
reach the tower. Needless to say it took Anne
longer to reach the tower than me as she kept
stopping to examine the flowers and other
vegetation growing in the crevasses of the
coralline limestone. As so often on our walks she
was bemoaning the fact that she did not have a
Maltese/Mediterranean Flower Guide so she could
better identify the plant life. This has now been
rectified and Anne reckons that the flowers she saw
on this walk and the other walks included gladioli,
orchid, sand crocus, Barbary Nut Iris, acacia,
snapdragon, freesia, Hottentot Fig
(mesembryanthemum), large clover (dried blood
colour), marigold, asphodel and Bermuda Buttercup,
which are the most common and found everywhere.
Mgiebah Bay or Selmun
Bay - We intend to visit this
beautiful bay on our next visit to Malta.
While Anne was doing her botany bit I spoke to a
group of two couples that were looking for a route
down to Mgiebah Bay – also called Selmun Bay on
some maps. Although they had been to Malta on many
occasions they had missed the turn off near Selmun
Palace to get to the bay. They were now
contemplating the possibility of scrambling down
the cliffside to get to the bay and the sea below.
However, our route was not so daring. We
backtracked to the "car park" and followed a steep
but easy track that took us downhill and closer to
the sea. Our route was now east along an undulating
path before heading uphill to higher ground. We
then dropped down to the coast directly west of St
Paul’s Island, which is where St Paul was supposed
to have been washed ashore after being shipwrecked.
St Paul's Island and
flowers
This area, which I understand to be called Blata
I-Bajda, had been used for salt production. The sea
water would flow into some small shelf like lagoons
and in the summer heat of Malta the water would
evaporate leaving salt behind. It was now abandoned
but it was a lovely spot to have our lunch of
Maltese Bread and cakes, which we had purchased
from George’s earlier in the day - Gosh, this
sounds like an advert for George’s Bakery. It
really was an idyllic setting. The sea was
beautiful.
No one visited this area while we were there, so we relaxed and took it easy for a while, watched the boats go by and generally enjoyed the seascape. Marvelous.
From here we went south aiming for Mistra Bay. However, to get there we needed to go uphill and over the cliffs which in parts were very dramatic, and yes we stopped every so often to look at more flowers.
Alas all too soon we were looking down on Mistra Bay and took the downward path to reach it passing on the way what seemed to be a mushroom growing establishment. Seemed an odd place to have such an enterprise!
At Mistra Bay we, like previously, sat and enjoyed the views before taking the minor road to the main route between Mellieha and St Paul’s Bay where we caught a bus to get us back to our hotel.
The distance of this walk? About 5 miles.