Altea la Vella to Totana - Days 105 to 109

Last day lunch at the beach bar in Altea with Elizabeth and Richard

We were rudely awakened on our last morning, though it was our normal waking time, another night of slightly too much wine? Could we go and help get Michael up off the floor where he had been since 05.00 having fallen out of bed? Should we be leaving? I’m sure it was just a glitch, though sadly it seems not, getting him in and out of bed is now a team effort and I feel horrible that we are not there.

Where we are now, is Sierra Espuña, a natural park south west of Murcia after turning Ted round on the drive, well done Brian, all very scary, followed by a pleasant drive and filling up with LPG for the first time in Spain. A different adapter and pump meant that again we had to ask for help, but again it was willingly given. 

On the Aire in Totana

We are on a commercial Aire which is lovely, one of our favourite places so far. It’s 3km from the nearest town, Totana, an easy cycle in as it’s all down hill, though not too bad on the way back. (campsite location: 37°47'34.1"N 1°30'35.3"W campsite amenities and photos: click here and item 44 in list). We were advised where not to park (too close to the toilet dump which can niff a bit) by Pauline a lovely lady, here with husband Ged, for the third time and for about three months. She then gave us directions to the nearest shop as we’d forgotten to buy yogurt. Although it’s an Aire it’s a commercial one, costing €7 (€10 if you want electricity) with marked out spaces, so camping behaviour is allowed, chairs and tables and washing. On our return B had a long chat while I desperately tried to read my book, there was one in the book exchange I really wanted. A planned detox didn’t quite happen, we did have an alcohol free night, but had to have crisps and fizzy water, couldn’t go completely cold turkey!

Instruction for the hike at the campsite

Thursday an easy scramble up a rambla, or dried up river bed, following instructions from a sheet inside the hut. It wasn’t difficult but was good fun, six miles into the park, interesting scenery, a fox, good bit of exercise....

Return for tea and cake before back into Totana, the promised bread van having not materialised in the morning (according to Pauline his brother died and he hasn’t been able to keep up with the rounds). At which point there was a cooee at the door, Pauline with her electric bike offering me a loan. It had obviously been one of the topics of conversation the previous day, but how very generous offering your very expensive electric bike to a random stranger. We jumped at the chance, and although Ged then turned up with his for Brian we decided to just take the one and B’s bike so we could do a direct comparison on a couple of hills. What a joy, it actually made me laugh out loud as I whizzed up hill with no more effort than if I was going down hill. We had talked about buying electric bikes before we set off but decided to see how we got on. It really could be very tempting!

Here's a 4min  Youtube of the Rambla Scramble:

And here's our Strava route of the Rambla scramble. Click on it and you can explore in detail


Friday we did one of Ged’s cycles, to the blue lagoon, only we didn’t quite go to the right place, but

Cycling along the irrigation canal in Sierra Espuna

13 very pleasant kilometres each way along the canal with 10 much harder km up and down through the woods was some good exercise. It was a good ride, shame we didn’t quite get to our destination, apparently where we went wrong we’d done all the hard work! Ho Hum! Back to get the chicken casserole into the thermal cooker, shower, rinse a few pairs of pants, normal things. Today we are still here, having a chilling sort of day, blog writing so we can get it posted with the very good included WiFi, though we will pop into Totana shortly to actually look at the town, maybe have a beer and tapa, buy some bananas.... hard life eh? Tomorrow we will probably move on, maybe a few km north, to a site that has lots of good walks nearby, though whether we will do anything tomorrow I’m not sure, the weather cloud looks black. Normal weather is about 14 degrees but sunshine so doing things is lovely. Does mean it’s cold at night though, 5.5 degrees on waking this morning.....

Stopping for a breather and to take in the views

Did indeed go to buy bananas and crisps, all food groups covered except chocolate! Didn’t think much of Totana, but had a lovely beer, bread and ensalada Rusa in the sunshine.

As it happened, in the tree next to Jackie in the previous photo, was a nest of prcessionary caterpillars just emerging from their nest. You can see one clearly, another one in the mesh and a third climbing up a branch to the left. The fur you can see on the one can kill a dog and cause severe irritation to adult humans. Have a look at this link: Processionary caterpillars in Spain explained

This I found interesting (others may not!). The surveying for this irrigation canal, weaving in and out of the mountains contours, occasionally going through tunnels I think was excellent, but this bit was particularly interesting; the water in the foreground is flowing towards us but, behind is a deep canyon and the little tower and fence you can possibly see in the distance is where the canalis on the other side. What happens in between? It goes into a tunnel that goes down into the canyon, along the bottom and back up to here. As this side is a bit lower than the other side, gravity keeps the whole thing flowing without the need for any pumps. Presumably building it this way was cheaper than building an aqueduct

This was about as far as we got on our Blue Lagoon cycle, not quite to the blue lagoon. a slight mistake as Ged told us later the actual lagoon was only a short distance further on and on a level track. We misinterpreted his instructions!

Here's our Strava route of our Blue Lagoon cycle (click on it, it's interactive) The little loop we did at the top is as far as we got. You can see the Blue Lagoon a bit further on on the map. Why didn't we see it at the time? Good question!