Up to Mata-rodona

Elisabet had never been to Mata-rodona, so the 1st of May was a nice day for going there. We took Frida (the dog) with us and made most of the rather boring earth road by car.

At Mata-rodona

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 The latter, I reckon, saved us some three hours uf rather dull earth-road-walking. We parked at El Ginebral, the last abandoned masia to be found before entering the natural park from our side, and soon walked by Coll de Gipó where we took the path to the Coll de Daví. After about half an hour, in the vicinity of a hill denominated La Morella, the path meets the earth road, again, only to abandon it definitely in favour of a hidden small path to the left, that enters the thick forest and directly leads down some 150m to where it crosses a small river. Due to the three days lasting rainfalls that only had ended the day before, the river was quite vivid. Until there, we knew the way from previous hikes, but then, instead of making our way up the torrent that leads to the small chapel of Concepció de Mata-rodona, we gave it a try and followed the watercourse in its upward direction. The river is known as La Riera de Mata-rodona, indicating the adjacence to, as well as the importance of the masia which in fact can be seen from far away. It wasn't always easy not to wetten once feet (Frida by the way didn't care) and Elisabet twice even got out of her sneakers in order to keep them dry, but fun it was.

Riera de Mata-rodona

Criss crossing the river, we reached a Y-junction with one possibility leading rightwards to Coll de Daví and the other to the left, following (upwards) yet another torrent. Our way was the one that followed the torrent to our left. Soon after the junction, another path diverted, left again, evidently leading to Mata-rodona. 

At the Y-junction

That was the one we took. From where we stood it looked as if we would have to negotiate a steep wall by climbing it, but the path, it turned out, elegantly wiggled its way through without confronting us with serious problems. At one point, however, it was utmost slippery, even for the dog, but finally we found ourselves at Matarodona. 

Mata-rodona's main building

Until here, our progress hadn't been fast, mainly because we had been playing around in the river with Frida and also because Elisabet is working on a virtual herbary and every now and then took photos of the vegetation we passed by. 

Campanula?

Hence, we scrubbed the idea of continuing to the flag that reigns on a rock over Mata-rodona and instead took a closer look at the different buildings of the masia as well as its well. 

Flag rock over Mata-rodona

Shame upon those responsible for the always hissing power line

One of the buildings it turned out actually can be used as a refuge. It has a door and, most important, a ceiling in a reasonable good shape.

 

For our way back we decided to take the torrent behind La Concepció which is not as overgrown as my memory said it would be. 

La Concepció

 Without too many scratches we made it down to the river again where the circular part of our route ended. From here, the path that led up to La Morella, as well as the way back to our car were those we had taken hours earlier.

Back at the car

My girls