Rabbit-less Thursday

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We’ve had a few days of relaxation, so now it’s time for some exercise. We get on the bus (yes I know that’s not exercise) and head off towards St Thomas Bay a couple of kilometres south of Marsaskala, where we plan to hike the Munxar Path.

There are some sandy beaches on the Bay, one of which seems to be well populated with British youngsters. If their pale skin is anything to go by I think they might have come here straight from the airport. I’m not sure why, but in our experience British beachgoers seem to have a strange aversion to hats, tee shirts and sunscreen. I think you can probably be allergic to sunscreen, but an entire nation? ... and anyway that wouldn’t explain the hats and tee shirts thing. It’s virtually cloudless and very hot, and I suspect this lot will probably look like lobsters when we come back past here in a few hours time.

It looks like the south side of the Bay might be where a lot of the locals have their weekend beach shacks. This seems to be quite a thing in Malta. Louis commented to us a few days ago about Maltese having “summer houses” in St Pauls Bay, well at least they did until tourism landed there and priced them out of the market. Some of the more well heeled back home have beach houses, but these are usually a few hours drive from where they live during the week, so I’m struggling a bit with the concept of someone owning a regular house and a weekend house, both on the same ten kilometre wide island. I suppose at least the commute between the two would be less of a hassle. Most of the shacks here on St Thomas Bay look a bit ramshackle, and are lined up together in a row across the road from the beach. There are exceptions. We pass one lonely looking box on the clifftop with spectacular views out over the turquoise water below. It looks ridiculously cute with flowers in planter boxes on the front porch and some storks of something that looks like corn growing in a small bed just in front of it.

The Munxar Path is a rocky track that leads us along the clifftop on the south side of the Bay. We pass signs telling us to keep off the land on the inland side of the track. It looks like some of the landowners might be trying to grow things here, but it must be a bit of a struggle when the “soil“ looks to be more stones than anything else. Can’t blame them for trying I guess.

As we continue the white limestone cliffs get progressively higher and more spectacular. They look very fragile, and it’s a bit hard not to notice the occasional large cave where it looks like part of the cliff face has collapsed. One large example is sitting just below the top of one of the higher faces, and above that … well someone’s decided this would be a good place to put a giant crane that they’re using on a construction project. I hope whoever it was knows about the cave.

We’re careful not to get too close to the clifftop as it does look like it could crumble away at any second and take us with it a hundred metres or so down onto the rocks below. Issy says we should hold onto each other so if the edge does suddenly give way at least we can go out together. We can’t help but reflect that if this was Australia there’d be warning signs everywhere, and fences stopping you getting anywhere near the clifftop. I’m not quite sure what’s happened back home to the idea of people being at least partly responsible for their own safety.

We’ve heard that there’s a fireworks factory out here somewhere. There seems to a bit of an obsession with fireworks in Malta. It seems that almost every church on the island holds its own annual feast, and we’re here in the middle of feast season. There are apparently more churches per head of population here than almost anywhere else on the planet, so that means lots of feasts. Most involve fireworks, and most of the fireworks are handmade. We’ve heard quite a few stories of people getting limbs blown off when things don’t go quite to plan during the manufacturing process, so putting a factory out here in the middle of empty paddocks would seem like a very sensible strategy.

Louis and Lily pick us up and we head off for a meal at St Pauls Bay near the north end of the island. The traffic is manic, and seems so much heavier than it was when we were last here five years ago. Apparently the permanent population here is exploding, and tourism is now their most important industry, so the temporary population is also growing quickly. The island’s tiny, so it must be getting to be a bit of a struggle to cram everyone in. Even more worrying is that Issy was telling me a few days ago that one of its other major industries is exporting bits of itself in the form of the limestone that all of it’s made of. I hope they don’t end up like the Pacific nation of Nauru. That tiny island was (?) made up entirely of phosphate rock, but they mined so much of it that eventually there was nowhere left for anyone to live, so they had to pick up most of the population and move them hundreds of kilometres to another island.

Our dinner venue is a very cute rustic waterfront cafe. Louis is hanging out for the rabbit he’s had here before, but it doesn’t seem to be on the menu. It’s Friday, but there’s live music playing, which according to the menu only happens on Thursdays, and we seem to have the rabbit-less Thursday menu. Our waitress explains that it was raining last night so they couldn’t open, so they’re now just pretending it’s Thursday. We’d kill for this sort of creative flexibility back home. The songs are mostly very familiar, but the singing’s … well …a bit pedestrian. After a few drinks this doesn’t seem to matter, and we even start to join in, which is undoubtedly ruining the experience for all the other patrons, not that anyone seems to mind. And as seems to be the way of things in Malta, our Maltese hosts get chatting to the large family group at the next table. It’s a small island, and when Lily first started talking to one of the ladies we assumed she must have known her, but no, it’s just what people do here. If you tried this back home the other patrons would think you were a bit strange, and if you persisted they’d probably call security and have you thrown out. .. and speaking of getting thrown out, Louis recommends we go to a traditional Maltese restaurant in a small village near where we’ll be staying when we go to Gozo tomorrow. He says he hopes we like it, but if we don’t he suggests we don’t complain because if we do the owner will just throw us out…

We drive back along the coast. We thought it was tourism central here in St Pauls Bay; lots of hotels and visitors wandering the promenade and hanging out of bars, but the area around St Julian’s makes that look deserted by comparison. Where did all these people come from? It’s complete mayhem; youngsters completely blocking the streets, bars jam packed with revellers, and, as Louis seems just a little too quick to point out, a “gentlemen’s club”, which looks like it’s in for a big night if the long queue outside is any guide. I’m suddenly very glad we’re staying out at quiet old Marsaskala.

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Photos

House on the Munxar Path
Seems to have its own private church and ancient tower?

Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Malta
It is lovely.

[RENanDREW]

Beautiful
Back home and catching up on your blogs once more! Looking forward to getting to the ones on Greece :)

[DaveandIssy]

Greece
Thx. Also looking forward to your impressions of Greece!