Barranco de Los Molinos walk

[duncolm]

As promised to GSD Girl, here are some more snapshots from the Los Molinos walk. We did the walk last month, before the heavy rains arrived.

For those who don't know it, Los Molinos is a village on the west coast. The walk is through the gorge behind the village. The gorge has been cut by one of the few permenantly running streams on the island. The walk along the bottom of the gorge is closed during the bird nesting season from February to July.




Starting from Los Molinos village, walk inland into the gorge with the stream on your left.


Those grey shrubs you see on the empty land around Fuerteventura look more like this when the have a bit of water...







The gorge meanders for about 3 kilometers until it reaches the road near Las Parcelas where the path rises to a small car park. From there a level path runs back along the top level back to Los Molinos. There are viewpoints and even a birdwatching hide looking down into the gorge on the way back.

[PHo]

Thanks for this duncolm. It is a lovely walk, highly recommended, and you have a good chance of seeing the Fuerteventura stonechat, the only bird that lives exclusively on a single Canary Island.

[lionfish]

Yes, a lovely walk, but do be aware that after heavy rain the bottom of the gorge can be extremely muddy - so choose your time to go!

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Great pictures - thanks. Were they taken after the recent rain or a previous year' rain?
Is this the 'reservoir' I've seen mentioned previously or is that further inland? If further, any idea of distance?

[lionfish]

The barranco comes from the reservoir, but I'm sure this walk is the bottom part of the gorge.
To walk to the reservoir, park up near a farm in Los Parcellas just before the road starts to drop down to cross the barranco. Take the track from the farm up to the reservoir. It is also possible to drive all the way to the reservoir if you are happy to drive on a track.

[duncolm]

Yes, this is the lower part of the barranco.

Tamara, these were taken on (checking the embedded data on the original photo) 15 November this year, so shortly before the heavy rains arrived. This is the most water I've seen in the gorge, but not by much. My guess is it's probably about average for November. It always looks this "unFuerteventura-like".

It's about 3km from Los Molinos up to Las Parcelas, where we turned back. There's about as far again to go further inland from Las Parcelas to the reservoir.

[Magoo]

This is the Dickybird that lives in the gorge. It was hoovering up small wildlife outside the fish restaurant at the end of the gorge.  A real crowd pleaser for the customers

[TamaraEnLaPlaya]

Tamara, these were taken on (checking the embedded data on the original photo) 15 November this year, so shortly before the heavy rains arrived. This is the most water I've seen in the gorge, but not by much. My guess is it's probably about average for November. It always looks this "unFuerteventura-like".

Thanks Duncolm and Lionfish - I've used your info and found  the reservoir on Google maps now.
Duncolm - we had an hour of solid, heavy rain on 1st Nov (culminating in hailstones) in the Corralejo area so perhaps that had topped it up. Not sure if all the island had that downpour though.