Thanks again for all the positive feedback!!
Regarding the walking books, I have the following:
Walk! Mallorca (north and mountains) by Charles Davis (retail £13) + associated map (approx £9)
Walking in Mallorca by June Parker/Paddy Dillon (retail £15)
Mallorca: Car Tours and Walks (retail £13) (sunflower book)
I’m not in a position to fully review these at this time. I would say that I’m aware that the June Parker/Paddy Dillon book doesn’t get fantastic reviews. I’d have to defend it at this stage since it’s the only one of the three that details the fantastic hike (climb!) over the peaks at the back of PP (Serra del Cavall Bernat route). Perhaps it’s considered too difficult by the other authors
I would say that generally, at this stage, I use the Charles Davis book more than the others, but this is probably because I have the detailed map that kind of accompanies the book, as the routes in the book are detailed on the map, as can be seen in my blog. Having said that the map is a separate purchase, and as I discovered a couple days ago when I bought a new one, it costs 11 euros here in PP. It’s a new “super durable polymer” version, I hope it’s more durable than my last one at that price!
The Charles Davis book is the only one of the three that has GPS waypoints listed and marked in the little maps in the book, for those with hand held GPSs. Initially I considered buying one in Oz, the price of the electronic topographic map of north Mallorca to load into a GPS was $80! A reasonable hiking GPS device costs around £250.
The sunflower book is good, especially if you want to do car tours too, and it’s great that it has the fold out map at the back, well two really, on one side is a map of the entire island, which shows the car tours but also has the positions of the walks numbered, and on the other is a detailed map of the central north (between Soller and Lluc), with the routes in this area detailed.
The Parker/Dillon book is the most comprehensive, with around twice as many hikes detailed as the others, and also covers the south-west, unlike the others. It does lack an overall map however, although all the books have little detailed maps on the relevant pages showing the specific hiking routes. This book is twice a big as the others with 380 pages, it’s a bit of a brick!
As I said I’m not really in a position to fully review these three, but I’d have to say that the sunflower book (Mallorca: Car Tours and Walks) is probably the best value for money, and unless you’re going to be here for a couple of months or more, or you’ll return regularly, I’d say that this is the one to go for. It's not quite as comprehensive as the others but comes with a good overall map built in. I’ll probably be in a position to write another book by April, but frankly there’s already enough out there, with a lot of the routes featured in all three books!
Regarding rights of way, yes, the books give specific info on this. I’m aware that there’s currently an issue with part of the GR 221, the route form the north-west (Capdella) to the east (Pollensa), where a farmer has built a large wall across the public right of way between Valldemossa and Deiá
Steve.