Paul Lydon: Lluc Monastery

As a large group were planning on a canyoning trip which involved an early start in order to get a parking place and Karen and I would need to go and hire wet suits as we didn't have any luggage allowance to bring ours, we decided to go for a walk instead.
We planned on an easier walk with no steep bits and no scrambling as my right ankle was still a bit swollen.
We decided on a circular walk starting at Lluc Monastery. Trish was at a loose end so decided to join us. Karen was driving us towards Lluc with much swearing because of the large groups of cyclists which made going up the narrow, twisting roads a pain.
We parked in the monastery car park and set off to begin with along the access road until we crossed over a wooden stile next to a large gate onto a wide, stony track leading past fields and trees.
Soon we arrived at the Refugi de Son Amer. From here we now followed the marked route of the GR 221 long distance route and this was an obvious and well sign-posted. Just after the Ermita de San Amer we followed a short detour to a view point or “Mirador” and then continued up to the Coll Pelat.
Passing this col we followed the path to the disused mineral water factory at Coll des Pedregaret and then down a road to the farmstead of Binifaldó. The old bottling plant we passed is now an outdoor education centre.
Not far past this we should have have left the GR 221 at a path leaving on the left between two “pillars” made of from stone blocks (similar to large gate posts), but we kept on following the GR 221 until we started descending on stone steps. By now we should have reached another Refuge but there was no sign of one. So we suspected there was something wrong.
We stopped by a small water works and stream with a stone pick-nick table and examined the guide book. I soon realised we were at the Font de Muntanya and had indeed gone wrong!
Luckily we hadn't gone far wrong, so we turned around and walked back towards Binifaldó which was definitely on the right route. We soon found the correct route and were soon passing the small Refuge, the Refugi de sa Coma where we made use of a pick-nick table (this time mad of wood) to sit and finish the remainder of our lunch.
Shortly afterwards we reached the Font de Mina which was covered with a stone construction and what looked like a tiny water leat. Passing this we reached a wooden gate by the MA-10 main road.
Here there was a drop down to a small underpass bringing stream water under the road with a chain across a continuing track.
We made the mistake of going through the underpass into a kids' playground with pick-nick tables. We soon realised we had gone wrong and went back through the underpass and stepped over the chain and followed this track through yet more pick-nick tables and kids' playground. This was the correct way, matching the guide book description, and after going up some steps we crossed the same road we had passed beneath earlier, the MA-10 and passed through a gate on the other side into an amazing area of weirdly-shaped limestone boulders very like Fontainebleau near Paris, but of course made of limestone rather than sandstone.
There was a route through the boulders marked with splashes of paint and this led us to yet another pick-nick area at Es Pixarells.
There was a track from from there which we followed for a while, passing a charcoal-burner's site and then from here we took a slight detour to see “The Camel” limestone rock and also have a look at the nearby viewpoint while standing in a natural walled pedestal formed from the limestone.
Leaving “The Camel”, we rejoined the main route and dropped down the remaining stony track and crossed an all-weather football pitch belonging to the monastery, using a couple of gates in the surrounding chain-link fence.

From there, we wandered back to the monastery car park.