Selvaggio Blu Meet - October 2022
Laura Jack writes a review of our bespoke Selvaggio Blu trek on the beautiful island of Sardinia. Although not Alpine in the true meaning of the word, this trek is an ideal training ground for technical skills and getting used to moving over rocky ground with a big bag. Long time supporter of the club Tania Noakes IGMFA Guide, arranged a small trip for us and handled all the on-island logistics as well as guiding us along the complicated trail, where local knowledge and prior experience takes precedence over traditional navigation skills!
Selvaggio Blu trek, Google tells me this translates to English as Wild Blue. Which is exactly what the trip was. Wild, lots of blues and utterly fantastic.
Sardinia is somewhere I wouldn’t have chosen to go if it wasn’t for WAAC’s trip. The photos sold the trip to me. However the photos didn’t really do it justice. The landscape, the people and the colours of the scenery were 1000 times better than any photo.
Starting at Pedra Longa and finishing at Cala Sisine, this is a trek where the distance means nothing. Everyday you make your way down to sea level and then back up to cliff tops with the most incredible views of the Mediterranean. We traversed a landslide that happened about 13 years ago, up and down gully’s and ravines and abseiled down cliff faces. We completed the trek in 4 days. But, luckily for us we had an extra day and finished at Cala Luna, I wasn’t ready for it to be over on day four.
Swimming was a daily occurrence and a chance to have a wash. Someone needed to be on jellyfish watch, thankfully only one of us fell foul to a sting. I ended up surrounded one time, I’m being dramatic, there were 3 tiny jellys that just appeared, but with Jenny’s expert help, I managed to get back on land without a sting.
The landscape was amazing, and this provided some slightly more technical walking, and required me to focus and concentrate a bit more than normal. There was a lot of shingle which tested my foot placement, a couple of times (read a lot), I got it wrong landed on my bum. Lots of limestone, which was dry and very sticky. There were also lots of interesting and unusual shaped holes in the limestone with sharp edges. I had to focus a lot and pay attention to my footing (holiday Laura was very much not present) but it did mean quite a few stops for ‘view appreciation’. The “oh wow, this is stunning” comments were endless. Our guide, Tania, probably got fed up of our repetitive and very predicable exclamations. But, it really was incredible. Every time I lifted my eyes I was amazed.
A bit part of the trek involved trusting the juniper branches and trunks that had been fashioned into ladders. They were a lot stronger than they looked and after tentatively climbing up the first one totally trusted their strength and loved climbing up them.
We were a self supported group and we had one re-provision, which was dropped off for us. Tania had also stashed water in two places. I personally loved that we had to carry all of our kit and didn’t have our sleeping bags and evening meals dropped off for us each day. Thank you Tania for the most incredibly well organised guided adventure ☺️
Being a small group meant that we moved through the technical abseils quickly, and it was only really at these points, at the camps or swim spots that we came across other people, the rest of the time were were by ourselves and able to enjoy the peace that comes with that. We camped outside each night and one night we were in a cave, another advantage of being a small group, we wouldn’t have been able to stay there if we were a bigger group.
Holiday Laura was able to come out in force when we made it to the last beach, quite possibly the best swim a drink and post adventure little nap on the beach ever.
Tania and Jenny organised an incredible trip and I learnt so much thanks to their vast knowledge and skills. Thank you both for providing an adventure for WAAC and thank you for answering my silly questions without judgement. I had a smile on my face all day everyday.
