Woodland ways

The feeling of disconnecting from the built environment becomes a reality when one walks through the Miżieb woodland.

Blue and gold darts of light filter softly into one's gaze through the evergreens, signalling sunshine or snatches of sea between the branches.

Miżieb was originally the term for the stone waterspout, still seen on old buildings. The planted ridge top grove of the same name runs along the top of a perched aquifer. Ancient supplier of water to the agricultural plain below, this groundwater body has been somewhat depleted as a result of excessive borehole extraction.

You can take a pleasant walk under tree cover, enjoying shifting patterns of light and the bracing smell of pines while your vision is, for a brief time, freed of Malta's urban landscapes. For isolated moments the constant tree cover provides an impression, quite alien to these islands, of walking under stealth in a forest.

Weaving randomly through a labyrinth of intersecting dirt tracks, gravel roads and subtle pathways give way to isolated moments of peace and introspection. Treading along parts of the route on a fragrant pine needle carpet, the crushed scent rises to grateful nostrils, too filled with town and city smells to ignore.

These days you are more likely to come across tourists on rented bicycles searching out surroundings that are easy on the eye. A family picking olives deep in the woodland is mildly surprised by a chain of hikers gliding past in single file, like a colourful collective snake.

The woodland forms a green corridor wedged between the Natura 2000 sites of Simar reserve and Mistra valley. Tree-planting started on the Xemxija ridge in 1972. The grove was leased to hunters and bird trappers in the mid-1980s.

Some want to plant more trees to "give the hunters' federation a good name" while extending the area for more hunting and trapping. Others are resigned to the fact that the woodland will be given back to the public. Many of the old hides and trapping sites in Miżieb have been abandoned.

The wooded ridge, already scarred by a service road for sewerage works, has been earmarked as the location for an entrenchment or tunnel to improve connections between Ċirkewwa and the Freeport. The northern section of the Malta Transport Authority's plans for extending the Trans-European Transport Network was shifted from Manikata when farmers objected.

An easy trek for seasoned ramblers starts off from the crumbling hamlet of Razzet tal-Qasam behind the barracks at Golden Bay. Pacing out onto the garigue, along time-beaten pathways, may present those lucky enough with a wildlife encounter or two.

Hypnotised into stillness by the warm autumn sunshine, a green-headed young whip snake basks on a rubble wall. Restricted to Southern Europe this reptile is a predator of insects, lizards, mice and even young birds.

Chameleons, originally native to North Africa, are said to have been brought to Malta as pets around 1850. They escaped from a garden in St Julian's to populate the countryside and blend in well with the habitat and ecology of this area.

Past Manikata church, before entering the woods, the stroller comes across a fine example of a megalithic wall as recorded by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority. Mepa's North West Local Plan aims to establish footpaths in the woodland area. By this we understand that a number of existing routes will be established for the enjoyment of everyone.

Miżieb's turtle doves, named for their vibrating turr-turr call, are in decline. Startled into flight by approaching footsteps, one or two of these birds may favour the walker with a chance sighting. Arriving from Europe with the spring migration, some pairs attempt to breed in woodland areas but, for the time being, they rarely succeed.

Secluded patches of cultivation are hidden among the trees. Pumpkins and beans enjoy the shelter of a sunny protected clearing. Toward the eastern end of the ridge a modern day girna (rural stone hut) plays big brother to older giren dotted across the western ridge, some in need of urgent attention.

The unmistakeable remains of a late Neolithic temple still survive after dynamite, employed to blast holes in the rock for tree-planting in the early 1970s, was applied rather too liberally.

Emerging from the trees above St Paul's Bay onto the open garigue causes one to blink because of unfettered light. At the end of the trail, the Xemxija Ridge is littered with 'Class A' archaeological sites to explore: a corbelled hut, Punic tombs and Roman baths.

Trickling down the "Pilgrim's Way" for a visit to the well-preserved Roman Apiary, the ramble ends happily with a jar of local honey from one of the seaside bars at the bottom of Xemxija hill.