A lot of work has been going on with the cutting down of the eucalyptus trees opposite us. We don’t know yet whether this is part of the initiative to replace eucalyptus with less fire-hazardy trees, whether they are cutting a fire break or if this is just normal harvesting of the trees. The government is offering incentives at the moment for people to replace eucalyptus with indigenous trees to reduce the fire risk, so it could be part of that.
Apparently a monk first introduced eucalyptus:
The eucalyptus tree came to Europe and to Galicia in the 19th century when a Galician monk brought some seeds from the faraway land of Australia where he had been a missionary. The species adapted so well to the local climate that it spread rapidly throughout the territory.
It’s been quite interesting to watch/listen to as we hear the trees crash. If we understand correctly, this plantation was planted 28 years ago.
We can see a swathe of where they’ve been cut from the end of the garden.
And we can see there the road into Cervo at the top. One of our neighbours remembers before the eucalyptus were planted and said they used to keep a look out at the road to see when the bakery man etc were delivering.
We thought that the area where they’ve cut the trees would make a good short cut if we wanted to walk to Cervo – however having taken a look and seen how steep it is, I think perhaps not!
Early Morning Hike
We took an early morning hike up to the top of where the trees are being cut – and quite a view has opened up! Just a couple of weeks ago this was all eucalyptus.
Our plan was to watch the sun rise, but realized that we were about an hour too early!
If you look carefully, you can just see our kitchen window!
Beach
Because no blog post will be complete without a beach photo ???
This is San Cibrao – I don’t know what this is, but it has a very Napoleonic look and I guess was some form of look out place. Must find out!!
