The Paphos Forest and the Mouflon

The Paphos forest covers the western end of the Troodos in ridge after ridge of Calabrian pine and golden oak, and it is the emptiest part of Cyprus, with unsealed forest roads winding for hours between one village and the next. It exists in its present form partly to protect the Cyprus mouflon, a wild sheep found nowhere else, which was reduced to a few dozen animals in the early twentieth century and has recovered into the low thousands under protection. Seeing one in the wild takes luck and an early start, though a small enclosure at the forestry station at Stavros tis Psokas holds a few animals reliably. The station also has a campsite, a spring and the start of walking trails, and the Cedar Valley nearby holds a stand of endemic Cyprus cedars.

The landscape

• The Cyprus mouflon - the endemic wild sheep, in the wild with luck or at the station enclosure.
• Stavros tis Psokas - the forestry station with its spring, campsite and trails.
• Cedar Valley - the stand of endemic Cyprus cedar nearby.
• The forest roads - long unsealed routes through empty pine ridges.

When to go

Spring and autumn are the most comfortable, with wildflowers in April and May; summer is hot and carries a serious fire risk, when access may be restricted. Mouflon are most active at dawn and dusk. Winter brings snow to the higher ground.

What to expect

The forest roads are long, unsealed and slow, mobile signal is patchy and there is no fuel or food for considerable distances, so plan accordingly. Wild mouflon sightings are genuinely rare and most visitors see only the enclosure animals. Fire risk in summer is taken seriously and closures happen. This is a place for solitude rather than sights.

Nearby

Kykkos monastery is to the east; Polis and the Akamas lie north.