Wednesday Walk ~ around the OLDEST OLIVE TREE IN THE MEDITERRANEAN ~ PARQUE NATURAL - Cabo de Gata - Nijar Spain 🇪🇸

Hi all 👋🏻

Today I won’t share my adventures of traveling to the States yet, as I’m still going through my 3000+ photographs I took 😇 and have to edit and sort them a bit more first. 😉🤓
So I thought let’s show you something special that can be found in the PARQUE NATURAL - Cabo de Gata-Nijar Spain.

With this post I’m joining in at the Wednesday Walk challenge and Make me Smile challenge. That are hosted by @tattoodjay and @elizacheng every week on Wednesday.

‼️Have a look: Here in the Wednesday Walk Community if you want to join in! or at @tattoodjay ’s Posts about it.
It will tell you also the rules of joining in, at the end of his posts about the Wednesday walk 😁

Today’s selection will be of 20 photographs, where I take you along on a visit to the PARQUE NATURAL - Cabo de Gata-Nijar Spain.
I visited this area 25 September 2017 traveling around Spain 🇪🇸 😊

The Photographs in this post are taken with my (not existing anymore) Canon eos 550D with 18 - 135 mm lens.

I will follow the time stamps on my photographs. So it looks like you are walking along with me 💃🏻💃🏻💃🏻 discovering this old olive tree and see the surroundings through my eyes. 😊

Let me show you first its location on Google maps, see the yellow star ⭐️ :

Zooming in a bit.
Do keep in mind, the location on Google maps isn’t correct. It is about half an hour walk to get down in this valley and all the way around to find the tree. When you are on the road above it, you can not see the tree. Go down and walk all the way until you can not walk further, only there you will find the olive tree. Even if it looks you are wrong, keep going. 😉

Let’s start our walk for today:

I see around me interesting details, like this little plant. Standing tall in it’s barren landscape.

It turned out to be truly photogenic 😎😉

Suddenly I see this bird on the ground. I managed to capture it quickly before it flew away.

Yes, I know it is far away… and I zoomed in all the way here.
Another capture:

I can’t tell you the species, but it looked very elegant and if you look closely you see it had captured a moth like creature.

After wandering for a long while… we finally find, hidden in a corner… all tucked away the tree we were searching.
Taddaaaa I present to you the oldest olive tree in the Mediterranean. 😎🤩 (so they say… on the sign😉)

It doesn’t look big in my photographs but believe me. This tree is truly biggggg 🌳🌳🌳🌳

It is fenced in and has a sign next to it. So you know for sure that you found the right one.

I translated via Google translate the text for you.
It states:
”The hollowness of this small, north-facing meander gives this privileged location the freshness and humidity necessary to protect this olive tree from the environmental adversities. It is this spread with traditional agricultural uses from time immemorial, constituting this dry riverbed the home from one of the oldest olive trees in the Mediterranean.

It has nine meters of base, six and a half of trunk and a height greater than eight meters. The cross of four robust branches is three meters high and form a crown of more than ten meters in diameter. This size elevated makes us suspect that the origin could be up olive tree grafted on a wild olive bush.

The origin of the olive trees is the region Mesopotamia, present-day Iran and Syria, about five thousand years. From there began its expansion towards Europa through the Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans and Arabs, who spread their cultivation. The word "oil" comes from Arabic "az-záyt" meaning "olive juice."

The first "Inventory of Monumental Olive Trees of Spain"; includes five olive trees, unique in the province of Almeria, two of them in the Natural Park of Cabo de Gata-Nijar, specifically in this dry river bed/ valley of Los Viruegas.

🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳🌳

Let me show you some details of the tree:

This is 6,5 meters around it. 😳
Do you see the little flower pot in the tree top right?

Amazing 🤩 isn’t it?

So old… it must have seen so many things… 🥰
The stories it could tell us. 😉

Look at it’s intricate details of the bark…

Another angle of the entire tree… the height is more than 8 meters. The light was very bright that day as you can see.

It was beautiful to see this old olive tree 🌳

Let me show you what protects the tree… the surroundings around it.

The rock face… with it’s intricate details.

Weathered by nature…

Caves that are sure home to other wildlife like bats 🦇

A safe haven for many bird species I can imagine.

As this area is on an migratory route for birds…

See the shelter they have? 😊😁

We saw this all around us and around the tree…

That’s what protected it all those years… 🌳🌳🌳☀️
Beautiful to see.

And that’s all for today’s post my friends, join me next time for more #adventures, #stories and #photographs 😎👋🏻 Even some #artworks once in a while will come by 🎨
Thank you so much for looking, and reading. And if you liked my post, an upvote or re-blog is always welcome 🙏🏻
Any questions or comments, let me know. Always happy to help.

Have a great Wednesday all 😎
Grtz Jackie

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