Riding out of Cagliari is fast, even in the morning rush hour and the first few kilometres on mostly flat roads fly by quickly. The sky is cloudy and it’s perfect cycling weather as I pass an old necropolis (really just some holes in the rock) and a thousand year old olive tree (I told him he didn’t look a day older than 900 years).
Only as I approach the first goal of the day, a plateau that looked intriguing on the map, the sun starts peeking through. The ride up to the plateau is marked as a bike trail, both on my map and by signs leading up. About half way up, I learn that ‘mountainbike trail’ in Sardinia equals ‘some loose rocks’ that require an e-mtb fully and Danny McAskill-level skills to ride. I just need to walk and carry my bike most of the way for half an hour.
At the top, the view down is nice, but the view onto the plateau is less appealing. Anyone looking for a ‘stony field’ would be hard-pressed to find a finer example. It even has hard thistles everywhere. Another half hour long walk brings me through to a real gravel road that’s actually rideable. On the way there I spot some smallish horses.
A sign later enlightens me that the whole plateau is home to a least tow unique ecosystems and the horses are a unique breed only found up here on this volcanic piece of rock, along with 5 or 6 other species of animals plants.
Tired, I enjoy an extended lunch in the sun, before riding down a real road. A few kilometres further, I find a good spot for the night and stop.
