Off again round southern Spain

On one of our many walks

We did head off, not very far, to a little site just north of Alicante (campsite location: 38°23'30.8"N 0°24'46.0"W). Very new, very French, very cramped, very very clean and very near to the tram into the city. Brilliant included WiFi, which I would say makes a change, except that we also have very good, included WiFi where we are now. We plumped for 4 nights, just because this was marginally cheaper per night than 3 nights and it was a lovely site. Book exchange, the lot. More than that though, three of the vans had travelling cats. One just opposite us was very entertaining, he pottered about returning to the van at regular intervals. If the door wasn’t open we watched him jump up and hang off the door handle, before letting go and crouching down so the door didn’t take his head off when it opened. Very clever.

Here's the very cleaver cat in mid air having just leapt up to catch the door handle of his owners motorhome

Views of Alicante from the castle

Thursday we went by tram, for the sum of €1.45, into Alicante to tour the castle, the MACA (Museum of modern art) and the old town. We didn’t go to the MARQ despite it being highly recommended as it seemed quite an ancient history museum and we’ve done quite a lot of Romans this summer in St. Albans and Salisbury. We thought we’d have a little tapas for lunch, before returning to Ted for my version, but as ever, a small lunch never seems to happen so no dinner required (walk with more photos: click here).

Walking through the old town with the castle in the background

The rocky headland of Cabo de l'Huerta

Friday we did quite a long walk, down and round the coast, very rocky and scenic before returning on the tram (walk with more photos: click here). Handy this tram. Not quite as handy as it might be though. Although the tram does go all the way to Altea, and beyond, for us to have answered the call from my father to come back to paint the chimney, would have been a right pain, two changes and almost two hours. Particularly as we thought it had been decided that until fires were over for the winter there was no point in painting the chimney!

Cabo de Palos lighthouse

Saturday was meant to be chilling, but we actually spent all day waiting for a call back from Explore travel, that we are actually still waiting for. It was all very frustrating. We think we are going to avoid some more of the British winter on our return and perhaps combine two of their trips and go to Egypt and Jordan. We first enquired through Trailfinders who seem to have done their level best to confuse the issue. Combine this with Brian’s first enquiry with Explore somehow going to the US, and then the busiest holiday booking weekend ever, and we are still waiting!

Sunset over the Cabo (Cape) 

The continuously interesting  coastline round Cabo de Palos

We moved on on Sunday to Cabo de Palos, on the end of La Manga, the little strip of land that forms the Mar Menor. There is a huge campsite that we didn’t really fancy, but it seemed to be the only pay option , we decided to go with it when on top of €21 there was €1 for an extra person, and then an €11 booking fee! We’ll wild camp by the lighthouse, it sounds lovely (location: click here). It looked lovely too when we arrived at 12.30 to a few other vans, and lots of cars. It’s obviously the place to come on a sunny Sunday. We’ll look at the other spot by the harbour, but expect that to be even busier, and so it was, but only after Doris had taken us on a very odd route.

The beach on La Manga, our lighthouse in the distance

Fortunately Brian’s reversing in tight spaces has gone from strength to strength and we got out alive! We finally found somewhere to abandon Ted, on a roadside by the market, not the most salubrious of spots but it’ll do while we have some lunch and wait for all the day trippers, to trip off home. We hadn’t booked for lunch, so our options were limited, we had to be inside rather than by the harbour (Restaurante La Tana), but the food was fabulous, a parillada, a mixed plate of a sea bass, three red mullet, a swordfish steak, prawns, mussels and squid, after a salad and bread and Ali oli. We were full! We collected Ted and returned to the lighthouse, to happily find space to park up. 

A very filling lunch next to the Mediterranean

Beautiful coastline (walk with more photos: click here), so we looked at the lighthouse and decided to stay two nights (assuming the first night was peaceful) and so a longer walk on Monday (walk with more photos: click here). The night was peaceful, and we felt quite safe. The police drove round a couple of times and seemed quite happy with us all, so that was grand. We did our walk the following day, which conveniently brought us through the harbour about lunchtime. We were pulled into a restaurant we’d approached the previous day, to be turned away as we had no booking. Today they had space and a Menu Del Dia €16 got us a drink, bread and ali oli, a huge salad and an even bigger fritura, a plate of fried whitebait, slightly larger fish, chipirones (my favourite, fried whole baby squid) and calamari (La Taberna del Puerto). Not particularly healthy, but very very good. If only we’d known the size though, we’d have shared, and still been full!

Aguilas port and coastline from the castle

Our campsite in Aguilas from the top of a nearby hill 

We moved on to Aguilas, a slightly strange campsite that is a bit old and tired, and now in the middle of an urbanisation, which has probably grown up around it. It is however cheap, but more comment worthy has really good sized plots (location: click here). It’s lovely not to feel like sardines. Although we Brits are very much in the minority we have at least seen one other van at each of these sites, though I did feel for the couple we met here. She obviously wanted to talk, so the blog I started yesterday is still ongoing. They were late arriving in Spain as it took three months for his new driving licence to come through, so they’d spent ages catching up with their friends, just after Christmas he’d poked himself in the eye on a bush while plugging in the electric. 

Amazing trees in the Spanish Plaza, Aguilas

This has been giving him grief ever since, despite going to the hospital and getting treatment for conjunctivitis, which it wasn’t. So they’d left their friends having finally caught up with them and decided to head home. Their bank had just contacted them to tell them their card had been fraudulently used..... and so it went on! She needed to talk!

We went into the town today, about a 50 minute walk, or a much shorter cycle, except that the last bit back would be all uphill! (walk with more photos: click here)We then have the problem of what to do with the bikes, so walk it was, then up and down to look at viewpoints and the castle, and I can feel my legs. Makes up for all the eating and drinking over Christmas I guess!

One of two working windmills in Aguilas and the nice view from beside it

That interesting building is the Auditorio y Palacio de Congresos. Not sure what happens if the wind really gets up on that concave wall, but I suppose they must have thought of that when it was designed

We did another nice walk this morning after she'd written her blog. Straight from the campsite to a rocky coast and a small beach called Playa Amarillo. You can see it with lots of photos by clicking here 

You could almost paddle out to that little island, or easily swim, but no visitors are allowed to protect it's fragile ecosystem

On Playa Amarillo (Yellow beach) with Aguilas in the distance

Panorama of the little island on the left, Playa Amarillo (centre) and Aguilas on the right

In other news: this is Brian's eldest grandaughter, Abbie at her graduation day at Manchester University, having got a first in her Bachelor of Arts degree in Education Studies. Well done we say - and we managed to watch it in Spain live by joining the university webcast. Can't believe I have a granddaughter of that age, by my daughter, Fiona is probably thinking that she can't possibly have a daughter of that age too!

Here's a video of her collecting it