Rocks, sheep and a beach for one

Two day bikepacking the Natural Park of Levant on Mallorca / Spain

The island of Mallorca might be more well known for its lovely beaches and parties and, if you are looking it bit closer, fantastic road cycling opportunities and great local culture. However if you go a level deeper you can discover wild and sometimes solitary beauty.

One example of this is Natural Park of Levant in the north east of the island. In April 2017 I took my MTB to ride from the coastal town of Sa Coma via the GR-222 hiking trail to the town of Arta and into the Natural Park. I camped in the park and rode along the coast and through the back country back to Sa Coma the next day. Both days were 50km with roughly 1.000m of climbing each.

Riding a bike off road on Mallorca means dealing with rocks - lots of them - but overall the route is fairly easy even for a less skilled rider like me. It combines single trail (the GR222 between Son Severa and Arta has both divine single track and views - sometimes you got to scare away the sheep in your path however), dirt roads and rocky bits of double track.
Along the way you pass through the nice town of Arta on day one and more tourism focused Cala Ratjada on the second day. Both have shops to restock water (there is no drinking water in the Natural Park as far as I know!) and bars to have a coffee and some nice spanish food.

You can pitch your tent on the small camp ground close to the beach in the parc but not elsewhere as wild camping is forbidden in Spain and especially in natural reserve. The campground is 5 Euro per person / night and needs to be reserve beforehand by contacting the parc management.

For me the highlight of this trip was the absolute solitude in the natural parc in the evening, night and next morning - The feeling of being “out there” while most tourists and many locals do not even know this place exists.

Adventurer: Bengt