cookieless, no-ads, no threats canyon exploring with
Michele Angileri

Riu Contra Manna

The granite rocks of Gallura have their highest elevation in Monte Limbara range, a world of rocky peaks with fascinating shapes surrounded by woods and an impenetrable Mediterranean maquis. Its bulk that stands out unmistakably above the surrounding hills is furrowed by wild valleys that in some cases host interesting but not very steep canyoning trails, made of rock and boulders.

Rio Contra Manna is among the main streams of southern Limbara.

I remember ...

7 years ... Few, so many ... They passed quickly (it seems like yesterday) but they seem like an infinite time ... Some things have changed, many things have changed, I too have changed, at least a little ... but I always have the passion for canyons, I still like to explore, immerse myself and "get lost" in the most fascinating and solitary natural landscapes.
And in Sardinia you can find all this: canyons to explore and wide natural solitudes in which to get lost for a while.

10 years ago there were more unknown canyons than now. Sardinia was more mysterious, more unknown to me but also to the locals. Immediately, from the first time I set foot on the island, I realized that was a perfect playground for me, a place where I could look for and find the embrace of Nature, majestic, harsh but friendly, the immutable becoming. A land far enough to give me an escape from the routine, and at the same time enjoyable even in a weekend ...

Thus began my canyoning trips in Sardinia, always with my canyoning partner Andrea Pucci. Journey after journey, exploration after exploration, I began to know and understand those places, the landscape, the streams. I told of them on this site, and other people began to know and frequent those streams and understand that landscape. For a period our friends from Cagliari Guido Biavati and Elisabetta Pinna joined us, and it was more explorations and discoveries.
Then, one day, the game stopped. Almost every game ends at some point: you start to get bored, tired of the game or the friends, or maybe the call of other places and games gets stronger ...
That is: my last explorations in Sardinia were in April 2012: Lispedda, Portas Santas, Spistiddadroxiu. Then none of my friends was never again interested in looking for unknown gorges in Sardinia. For me it became easier and more gratifying to explore canyons in areas closer to home, areas that began to prove more complex and rich than I had ever imagined, areas still to be understood, unlike Sardinia, which I had begun to perceive as a fairly acquired knowledge.

In the meantime in Sardinia some local canyoneers had begun searching for new canyoning routes. The searches were successful, but half of these new canyons were the streams where I would have gone if I had continued explorations in Sardinia. Yes, because when my explorations on the island stopped I had a list of streams next to be explored. For my pride of "canyons searcher" the exploration done by others of a gorge that I had localized, of which I had begun to plan the descent, estimating the features, the difficulties, the commitment, was not really a good news, but I knew it would happen, sooner or later. Those who live in the area have all the opportunities to explore the canyons and find the right water conditions. The weird thing, if anything, were not the explorations made by the Sardinian canyoneers but mine, those made by a guy who lives far away, who in his life spent a couple of months in Sardinia "opening" a new gorge one day on two ...

7 years ... So many, so few ... Anyway, here I am again to resume a game carried on elsewhere, to enjoy these landscapes and solitudes again, to look for a passage through the impenetrable bush, to move on slippery rocks, surrounded by beautiful granite peaks immersed in vegetation, underneath a clear blue sky and the strong sun, accompanied by the sound of water leaping down the waterfalls fed by an unusually rainy May. I'm back here, enjoying the beautiful nature of Sardinia, following my curiosity, sending away the stress of daily work, doing what I like without conditionings
Enjoying life.

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