Back to Nature

The wind is blowing straight at us, but nobody seems to mind the slight chill. We’re all too busy taking in the scene beneath us: first, sloping land, with a boulder scree running at its edge and then – beyond – a full view of open sea, restless and stirring, beneath us.

We’re all standing in a small room cut out into the highest point of a cliff face – a few steps lead down into it from the cliff top above. “It seems that this room was used by the English as a lookout point for approaching ships, to warn soldiers at the barracks and shooting range to interrupt shooting,” explains our guide Annalise Falzon. The sloping fields, it turns out, are not just that: a closer look reveals tiny labyrinthine stone walls separating patches of land in an intricate pattern, suggesting that the land was used for agriculture, says Annalise, as we climb back up the steps and resume our walk.
We were in fact following Annalise on a six-kilometre walk through Il-Majjistral Nature and History Park – Malta’s first nature park – set up in 2007, and managed by the Heritage Parks Federation, made up of three local NGOs, Din L-Art Helwa, Gaia Foundation and Nature Trust (Malta). The park – situated in the Mellieha area – is named after the prevailing north-western wind which blows through the area, influencing its characteristics and landscapes.

Extending from ir-Ramla tal-Mixquqa (Golden Bay) to il-Prajjet (Anchor Bay), the park includes a variety of landscapes and habitats, including clay slopes, boulder screes, maritime and clifftop garigue and steppe, maquis and agricultural land – both abandoned and in use. The park also includes a sandy beach and associated dune, which together harbour a vast array of flora and fauna, including species which are rare or endemic.

Most of il-Majjistral – which is three kilometres long and 2.3 kilometres wide – forms part of the protected Special Area of Conservation (SAC) of International Importance known as Rdumijiet ta’ Malta (Coastal Cliffs), a Natura 2000 site forming part of Europe’s natural heritage.
During the walk, we passed mysterious stone giren (corbelled huts) and cart ruts, fields covered with beautiful wild flowers and fertile agricultural land which appeared freshly-tilled, stone steps hewn in cliff faces and the uninhabited old settlement of Razzett tal-Qasam. At every step, what initially appeared barren or insignificant turned out to be far richer: a clump of wild flowers was actually a bush where several different species survived harmoniously and sitting in silence for a couple of minutes made us listen to the rush of the waves and the cries of several songbirds. By the end, we were identifying names of flowers, treading carefully to make sure we did not upset the fragile and rich balance of life which seemed everywhere around us.

Here, flowers grow from cracks in rocks, the wind sweeps through fields of grass, fissures in cliffs provide new shady habitats for different plants. Far from the constraints of the towns, life follows its own slow relentless rhythms at il-Majjistral: the sun rises and sets, the seasons slide gently into one another, the landscape changing gently in step with them, following a natural rhythm that has preceded – and will succeed – us all.

The walk is six kilometres long and takes approximately two-and-a-half hours; walks are normally held on Sundays and must be pre-booked two weeks in advance on walks@majjistral.org. For more info visit www.majjistral.org