Climbing the Duna de Bolonia
The Duna de Bolonia is a spectacular natural phenomenon located on the Atlantic coast at the western end of Playa de Bolonia. It’s not just a large sand dune; it’s a dynamic, protected landscape of great ecological and historical importance.
Playa de Bolonia - top right is the Duna de Bolonia sand
dune
It stands over 30 meters high, extends more than 200 meters inland, and is about 500 meters wife. It was declared a Natural Monument in 2001 by the Andalusian Regional Government.
Kiersten struggling back against the strong winds and driven
sands
Unfortunately we “climbed” (I use this term loosely) this dune on a very windy March day. Not so bad heading up (westwards) as the wind is on your back, but turning around on the top of the dune and returning east was an experience.
Hundreds of thousands of small, stinging grains of sand travelling at warp factor 4 directly into the face for the next 45 minutes wasn’t what I would call fun. Having said that it was a very cheap, complete and thorough exfoliation of the skin.
Sand travelling at that speed invades every weakness in your body and clothing armoury. Cameras took some cleaning afterwards and emptying a ton of sand out of the shoes explained why they felt like I had been carrying lead weights around.
Image from Duna
de Bolonia sand dune hike
Image from Duna
de Bolonia sand dune hike
Described as a “Living” Dune with a unique ecosystem. This is an active, transgressive dune, meaning it is constantly on the move . The strong easterly “levante” winds push fine sand from the beach inland.
At times during our walk it felt like a Sahara or desert like experience. Profoundly different to anything I had previously encountered.
It’s a unique landscape where the dune is slowly advancing over a reforested area of stone pines and Mediterranean scrub. This ongoing “battle” between the advancing sand and the trees is a key characteristic of the site. The dune system also supports specialized coastal flora like sea daffodils, sea holly, and the Andalusian coastal juniper.
Image from Duna
de Bolonia sand dune hike
Image from Duna
de Bolonia sand dune hike
Image from Duna
de Bolonia sand dune hike
Image from Duna
de Bolonia sand dune hike
Image from Duna
de Bolonia sand dune hike
Image from Duna
de Bolonia sand dune hike
Image from Duna
de Bolonia sand dune hike
Image from Duna
de Bolonia sand dune hike
Image from Duna
de Bolonia sand dune hike
Image from Duna
de Bolonia sand dune hike
Image from Duna
de Bolonia sand dune hike
Image from Duna
de Bolonia sand dune hike