Well, who’d have thought we lived near the tallest tree in Spain. Certainly we didn’t – although admittedly it was something we’d never really thought about!!
The sequence of events was like this – we had walked up to see where the trees had been cut down and then thought about what our neighbour said about remembering when the landscape was hills and pine forests before the eucalypts plantations were widely planted. We think she said that the ones being cut down now are 28 years old, so we were musing over how tall they get – quick google search and we find the tallest is not only 67 meters high, but it is near us by Viveiro (strange nativity scene town).
This is the tallest tree in Spain, one of the tallest in the world and maybe the tallest in Europe (although this is a title closely fought with a eucalyptus tree in Portugal). Our tree, ‘The Grandfather’ was measured in 2010, whereas the Portugal tree was measured in 2017, hence the ‘debate’.
The second tallest tree in Spain is in the same plantation – and given that The Grandfather was actually dwarfed by some surrounding trees, it might be time for remeasuring!
The tree is part of a circular-ish walk part of which was along a river where there were old and new water mills.
When we were driving to Viveiro, we realized what a massive impact the plantations would have had – and not surprising that the eucalyptus are not universally loved. It would have been like the whole landscape increased by, say, 20 meters. Again, this isn’t something we’d thought about, but I do remember seeing houses surrounded by eucalyptus and thinking the house would be great, but it would be dark because of the trees. When it was built, it would have been surrounded by hills.
I’ve also seen houses which I’ve wondered why they have had big stone balconies or old glass galleries along the front wall, when all they look at is eucalyptus trees – again, the landscape would have been very different when they were built.
It must have been like a reverse filling of a reservoir, where instead of valleys being filled, hills in effect were raised (although in this instance it is reversible).
Anyway – it was a very nice walk to see The Grandfather and a whole new topic to think about!
Plus it was a nice walk and different countryside again.
