Saturday 14 November 2015

Alone in Altea



(well not really, we still have Pepa to ignore us!)


Walking in to Puig Campana. It's 1408m, just 1m taller than Ben Nevis
Eventually packed them out the door just before 04.30 having been awake since about 02.30, didn’t go back to sleep till after B got back at 06.15, so we probably felt nearly as rubbish as they did plus of course they had to stay up an extra hour!


After a leisurely breakfast though we set off to Puig Campana the mountain right in front of you as you sit on the balcony to find the start of the 13 pitch climb and the start of the walk to the summit. 



A rocky, vague path to the climbing area
Here's the climbing area closer up...
Nice drive, found the walk in for the climb, but he was already beginning to lose interest when he realised it wasn’t bolted but relied on placing gear, so for that long and intensive climb we would have to really up our game. We then met an Anglo/German couple who had done the first three pitches and backed off as the grades were all over the place, this in conjunction with all the warnings in the book about length of day required, 6 hours if moving very well, and the difficulty in finding the descent route….. perhaps not. The walk is still possible though!


...and here's the page from the climbing guide. The route is shown in dotted red.13 pitches of UK grade Hard Severe trad climbing. Mmmmm, maybe a few years ago when we were climbing a couple of grades above that, but probably not now. Massive exposure throughout the whole route would just nibble away at your nerves!
Jackie painting the bench blue, as instructed. What do you think?
Stopped off at an Aldi on the way back, not quite the same as those at home, but still, good looking fruit and veg, and very cheap. Shame there isn’t one closer to the house!


Jobs on Friday, painting for me, and replacing two tiles on the verandah for him, so today he has been sweeping and washing down, plus another couple of odd jobs including changing a washer on the boiler that had probably gone when the water came back on Tuesday judging by the speed of drip and the amount of water on the floor under the stairs! Fortunately he found something to fit!


Playful squirrels in the garden
Yesterdays walk up to the Bernia Ridge, through the tunnel and back over the col
Yesterday we did a recce to the far side of the Bernia ridge, to find the parking and the walk in to enable us hopefully to do the whole route with Simon and Diane who arrive for a week in Calpe today, it’ll be good to catch up. As ever however, rather than get to the tunnel and turn round and go back we had to go through, do a bit of the standard path before crossing back to the north side over the col. That bit was easy, finding a path down was not. So prickled and grumpy we finally made it back to the path, fortunately the wild boar we disturbed was on the other side of a small valley so we didn’t really worry about him, back to the car and home for a beer and olives!
On the path to the ridge. The dip in the ridge is the col we came over from the other side and then dropped down this side back to this path. All the greenery you can see is thick prickly steep undergrowth - she was not happy! I told her how she always has an adventure with me, life is not boring. 'No' she said, 'but it might be shorter!'
 
Still on the ascent, before she lost her sense of humour
 
Crawling through the tunnel through the ridge
 
Arriving at the other (south) side of the tunnel with views out to Benidorm
 
Me 'n er outside the tunnel
 
And this is what the tunnel looks like from Jackie's dads patio. Can you see it? It's dead centre, just to the right of that big tree
 
Knowing that we can see the tunnel from their house, we must be able to see their house from here, but where???
 
We decided this must be it. Not a very good photo as I'm at the limit of my basic camera. We think it's the house slightly to the left, just above the cliff edge. We think we can just see half the round swimming pool and the car port. The rectangular pool to the right is, we think, the house in front
 
On the col looking back to the north, for a late lunch. All we have to do now is drop down there back to the path and the car...
 
Mmmm, steeper than we thought and no path. She's not looking very happy now is she!
 
But we got down and she found some cats to fuss
 
And back to the house for beer and olives
 
Little Pepa sitting on a bench watching us from a distance. The trouble is she just doesn't understand our waving at her and talking to her in a ridiculous voice! Will she ever accept us? Who knows! But she does like us feeding her!

1 comment:

Monty Dog said...

Did giggle at your comment about life never being dull and Jackie's response! Hee. hee! A beer sorts most things though. You cant be grumpy for long with that wonderful weather. Its grey and windy here (the weather not me and him!)

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