In the heart of the Forest

After heading into the Forest with a dodgy ankle and resting it overnight, today’s walk was a circular 14.4km walk to explore the forest. Predicted to take 4 hours 30 minutes, which both of us knew would be optimistic, even at best.

I’d debated with myself if it made sense to do the walk, but as the notes said that the walk would immerse us into everything the forest had to offer I was keen to see what it had in store for us. It also looked as if the walk was a large figure of eight so, if my ankle was playing up there was an option for us to cut it short as tomorrow was a ‘move on’ day and so I needed to be able to do that.

So off we set.

We took a picnic from the hotel and headed back the way we’d arrived yesterday, this time though taking in more of our surroundings, including these peculiarly ‘ribbed’ trees, but still looking out for the signs to ‘Laghetto’ - or small lake or pond.

Our walking notes told us that the Foresta Umbra is devoid of watercourses due to its karst nature, meaning that the topography is formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks such as limestone and dolomite.

Collections of rainwater form though, and they were fundamental for the development of settlements in the past, and still used as a key resource for animals living in the forest today. The largest of these is Laghetto d’Umbra with a depth of a couple of metres occupying the central part of a large sinkhole and the home to carp, the common toad as well as non-native species such as the golden carp, the catfish and the red-eared pond turtle.

Having spent some time at the lake we headed off for our next destination, the temporary waterhole ‘Cutino d’Orti’ but more on that when we get there, as it was truly amazing and like nothing I’ve ever seen before so I was so glad we opted to do the walk.

But we had plenty of forest and forest paths to navigate before we got there, and many directional markings to admire - thankfully today, we were following well signed footpaths.

These views of paths flanked by trees never get old, even looking back at my photos as I write this post I can feel the cool calmness that they exude, which was great then experiencing first hand and also very welcome today as the temperatures have notched up again here.

There were glimpses of sunlight coming through the tree canopy too - whether it was right down to the forest floor or just caught in the leaves, it’s no wonder that we find forests captivating.

We approached the clearing with the temporary waterhole ‘Cutino d’Otri’ and we couldn’t quite believe what we were seeing. We knew to expect a circular shape, bordered by an ancient dry stone wall with two gaps, or passages, which allow wild animals to drink without being trapped in its stagnant waters.

But we didn’t expect this.

It was stunning. The colour especially so.

And mesmerising. We watched the small insects dart about the surface, a toad appear every now and then and make a tremendous racket and unknown creatures below the surface. We even saw a small turtle crawl out of the water to enjoy the sun.

Totally amazing, and not something to miss - even to rest a dodgy ankle.

Eventually we drew ourselves away and headed into another part of the forest, this time to Falascone a further protected segment and a rare example of mixed beech forest. It was as amazing as the rest of the forest, but by now I was keen to get back and rest my ankle as I knew tomorrow’s walk could be more challenging. It was short, just 8.6km but it was the total ascent of 485m and a total descent of 315m that was playing on my mind!

I was momentarily distracted though by spotting a Granny’s Bonnet, and then lots of lichen!

And then there was the road back to our hotel, which was almost as picturesque as being in the heart of the forest. Almost.

See all of my posts from our self-guided walking holiday in the Gargano Peninsular. We started the walk on 18 May 2024, returning to the UK eight days later.

Post Comment Love 18 - 20 July

Hello there, and welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - a relaxed, friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love.

Please don’t link up posts which are older as they will be removed, and if you see older posts are linked then please don’t feel that it’s necessary to comment on those. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

Our escape to the coast last weekend did mean much lower temperatures, which we were grateful for - and we were lucky with the traffic too, which was an unexpected bonus. It was good to have an early birthday celebration for my dad, and with my brother and I arriving with everything needed for the weekend it also meant a relatively stress-free time for our parents too. Though we did need to improvise with the Pimms with no large jug to be found, instead though we found the perfect secondary use for the liquidiser jug!

It’s been cooler this week - yay! - and I’ve even snuck a morning or so in the garden potting up plants and cutting down some of the bushes which went wild while we were away. And I’ve picked the first of my black viola cherry tomatoes - I can’t wait to try them soon!

Have a great week.

The 'New' Build Garden

* I was invited to this year’s Gardeners’ World Live and provided with a pair of tickets to the show, therefore all my posts will be marked as 'Ad’ though as usual my views and opinions are very much my own.

Knowing where to start with my individual garden appreciation posts from this year’s show was quite the challenge. I shared my highlights from around the show, and I expect you thought I’d start by sharing either the ‘Best in Show’ Where there’s water, there’s life garden or Nick Bailey’s Plant-based garden, but in fact I’ve chosen neither of of those (though they are on my list to share).

I have as you can see from the title of this post chosen to start with The ‘New’ Build garden, as it was more than you’d expect it to be, and in fact we’ve been lucky with our new build garden being more than we expected it to be too.

This garden was designed by brother and sister designers, Henry and Lucie Ponsford at Mimosa Design. Their garden transforms new build home gardens into lush, sustainable retreats by blending repurposed waste materials with ancient crafts, and offering luxury without compromise.

Knowing this I was still quite surprised to see an hot tub, albeit an eco one, in the garden alongside the handcrafted hut, but as the blurb on the board said it’s purpose is to ‘show that style and sustainability can coexist.’

I’m all for that.

They have aimed to reduce landfill impact by using intelligent and creative solutions, such as fast-install permeable paving and soil-relocating gabions - you’ll recall I was rather taken with these.

But it wasn’t just the angular gabions that I liked in this garden - though filling them with old paving slabs stacked on an angle was a great idea and a great way to bring even more texture into the space. There was another use for old paving slabs, that might not have been immediately apparent.

The triangular sections in the paths were also old paving slabs cut into narrower strips then inserted into the permeable path on their ends to give this effect. Simple (in design if not necessarily to replicate), but very effective, don’t you think?

There’s gutters at ground level as attractive solutions to channel and gather water - something we all probably need to do more of, and with the inclusion of astrantias in the planting I was always going to stop by to learn more about the garden.

I can see how the gutters at ground level could work and bring both calmness and a practical solution to the garden, but I’m still in two minds about water elements in gardens and the need for keeping them clean easily. I’m all for water storage though, as these past few weeks (and actually months) has shown, we need to do more to conserve rainwater when it comes.

And those angular gabions amongst all of the other angles are designed to reflect a landscape on a precipice, but still allow the garden to become a sanctuary for people, water and plants. And through their designs they’ve demonstrated that new builds can connect us more deeply to nature than you’d think, and don’t have to be the standard ‘square of grass’ left by the developer (if you’re lucky).

And I agree, they’ve definitely shown that style and sustainability can work together. The permeable walkways were something we spoke to the garden representatives about, and while I’m keen to have something permeable we don’t think these are for us. In this garden they’ve added the wooden cobbles in ‘high traffic’ areas as the surrounding surface could be muddier than you’d like after rainfall, something to consider as I definitely don’t want muddy footprints in the house.

* With thanks to Gardeners’ World for inviting me to Gardeners’ World Live, it was quite a show! I’ll be sharing more from my visit to this year’s show throughout the year - I hope you enjoy them as much as I did the show.