YOUR LETTERS

I sympathise with Mr Galuidi (Your letters, August 9) who complained about closed mountain paths. I suspect the landowners would claim they were not encouraging walkers for environmental reasons and that they did not want careless tourists littering the countryside with their picnic leftovers or even worse, lighting barbecues.

I would counter this argument by pointing out that the type of tourist who leaves the litter I run through on some of my early morning runs, does not go in for mountain walking.

There is another problem for keen walkers. Not only are some paths closed, but the ones that are open are often difficult to follow because there are no signs.

This weekend I wanted to climb up to the ‘ermita' and the monument in the hills above Esporles, with the help of a guidebook. The book was out of date so a wooden gate had become an iron gate etc.

As there were no signs I only made it to the top through a chance meeting with two locals. One of them told me he was glad there weren't any signposts and he was really angry that someone had painted a yellow arrow on a rock! I should add that there are a number of walks in the Calvia area that “are” well signed.

Thank you, Calvia Council!

Yours faithfully, George Tunnell
C'as Català Nou
Calvià

P.S. This week I will be walking along the ‘Camino de Santiago' in Galicia where nearly everything possible is done to encourage walkers, with consequent benefits to the local economy and little damage to the environment.