Two Go Exploring Spain

[Puddleduck]

Poor Charlie. Our dog loved fireworks, tail wagging and desperate to chase but she was unusual I think. The noise didn't worry her in the least but then she was a trained gun dog.

 

[Figaro]

Poor Charlie, hope he's calmed down now, he can tell us all about it on his own blog

 

[Spriddler]

Subtle product placement.
Do you use a roller or a brush?
(Doncha just love Internet Influencers!).

Great thread but poor Charlie. Our Westie trembles and pants at firework noises.

 

[DBK]

Subtle product placement.
Do you use a roller or a brush?
Doncha just love Internet Influencers!

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Great thread but poor Charlie. Our Westie trembles and pants at firework noises.

Well spotted for the Nivea! It's a very lightweight tin I use to keep bits of cord in for tying the mast to trees etc.

 

[Spriddler]

It's a very lightweight tin I use to keep bits of cord in for tying the mast to trees etc.

Of course it is. And did Charlie ever eat your homework?

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[Spara4042]

Oooh how exciting you are near us. We live at Pinar de Campoverde, how long are you in this area? We’ll have to try and meet up if you have time?

Our friends live in Pinar, we’ve been visiting them for years. In fact we’re heading there now for a day of sunbathing by their pool

 

[DBK]

The town of Caravaca de la Cruz is overlooked by the Basilica de la Vera Cruz de Caravaca or Basilica of the True Cross (I think!). And yes, I had to look up what a basilica is too, it's just a church granted special privileges by the Pope. I'm not sure what the privileges were but it probably involved raising money from the locals and/or pilgrims.

You can see it from the aire and is lit up at night.

Or rather, you can almost see it as they've plonked another church in the way. The Basilica is the group of buildings on the hill behind the square tower in the foreground.

When you've walked to the top (in daylight!) there are some good views of the town.

I'm also learning how to do panoramic shots with my 'phone.

The entrance to the church seems to be made out of the same stone you sometimes see horrible mantlepiece clocks made from.

There was a service going on inside and we could hear the organ and singing. This didn't stop a bus load of tourists going in just before I took the photo above.

Back down in the town we followed the sound of drums and discovered a procession to the Basilica was just starting. Charlie wasn't impressed by the noise of the drums but at least there were no fireworks.

 

[Grianan]

Great photos - the night time one is absolutely stunning - camera phones have really come on.

 

[DBK]

We are on the coast but have not entirely escaped mountains.

This is where we are now.

Zoomed in:

We are staying at the privately owned aire Totuga Mora. It's a slightly odd place where everything is extra, €2 for water and €1 for a shower. I would prefer a higher charge with everything thrown in because it's less hassle but I can understand many prefer a basic price so they are not paying for something they don't need.

There are a lot here who are staying several months including many UK vans. The owner said they were full over winter and reservations were needed to get in but during the summer their main customers are Spanish at weekends.

Looking at the close-up map above you will see a dark blob just south of us. It is a little hill which formed part of the background to the cover picture of one of my books.

That's it on the right, and here from the other side as I approached it on foot this morning.

The path goes up to the col between the two summits on the right.

This is the view from just above the col once you have climbed the steep path

And one hour later, almost to the minute after leaving the 'van I was at the top. Where I set up my radio station.

View from the summit. There was a bit of sea mist.

Still working on the selfies. I do have a selfie-stick but I left it back at home.

And who I contacted today. From Yorkshire to Tenerife and Poland in the east.

 

[monzer]

Do you get a lot of people wondering what you are doing with all the kit?

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[DBK]

Do you get a lot of people wondering what you are doing with all the kit?

I didn't see anyone today but I did on the last hill. I was getting odd looks from a couple so I unplugged the earphones which meant the sound came out of the loudspeaker on the radio. It was all dits and dahs as I was using Morse code. In the subsequent short conversation I learned the Spanish for Morse is also Morse. I'm not sure they were enlightened though.

 

[3 cabbages]

Just in case anyone thinks this was a serious reply, I wouldnt park a motorhome there, ever.

Where?

 

[tony_g]

That would work. A bit like eating snails. The mollusc itself is like a bit of rubber but with masses of garlic, parsley and melted butter they are fine.

Just omit the snails, then

 

[Wolfie136]

Another reasonably short hop today, still following the Ebro south east. For once we didn't take the motorway but instead used the N232 which was a generally good road with not too much traffic.

We have stopped at Aceite Atajo, number 55295 in CamperContact. It's a large olive farm with oil production facilities and a shop we will visit before we leave tomorrow. All free, including water, although I can't find any dustbins! You are asked to book ahead before coming here on the website. I only did that this morning but an automated reply came straight back with the gate code if it was closed (it wasn't) and advice on the best route to approach the place.

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It's not somewhere for a long stay but we had a pleasant walk of about three kilometres this afternoon around a low hill on which they are building wind turbines - using very big crane!

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There was not much happening which was probably due to the strong wind blowing.

There was a solar farm up here too.

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The panels are fixed in elevation but swing around to track the sun.

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As we walked along the fence every few minutes you could hear a whirring sounds and we even managed to see one next to the fence while it was actually rotating, the ends of the array just moving a few inches.

I had remembered to bring my binoculars on this walk and had a very good view of a marsh harrier, glimpsing both the top and underside, which are distinctive, and even with my limited knowledge of birds of prey I was happy with the identification. This isn't exactly marsh harrier territory so it might have been on migration.

But it is wind turbine territory.

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Curiously, we couldn't see any turbines moving. The wind isn't that strong so that can't be the reason. Perhaps there just wasn't the demand for electricity today?

Near the aire they have been pruning the olives.

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The trees are small and planted close together in rows presumably for harvesting by machine.

There are irrigation channels every where, most small but some much bigger with fast flowing water.

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This is where we are now, blue blob near the top and a little left of centre. Tomorrow we will continue south east, avoiding Zaragoza and find somewhere beyond it for tomorrow night. The mountain, Moncayo, in the lower left is about 2,300m high and has snow on it down to about 1800m. We could see the Pyrenees off to our left on today's journey and all the big peaks were a solid white.

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Hi

You most certainly are very adept at roaming around Spain, I wondered if you had had any experience of navigating the M50 around Madrid. coming in from the north and exiting due south. Any tips ? as it looks quite formidable.
Hope your enjoying your trip. In your post you mention "camper Contact" as I am entirely new to this site is this part of the site or something else?.
Any help would be much appreciated
Alan J

 

[MichaelT]

Hi

You most certainly are very adept at roaming around Spain, I wondered if you had had any experience of navigating the M50 around Madrid. coming in from the north and exiting due south. Any tips ? as it looks quite formidable.
Hope your enjoying your trip. In your post you mention "camper Contact" as I am entirely new to this site is this part of the site or something else?.
Any help would be much appreciated
Alan J

We did it S to N last year no problems at all.

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[Rapido925M]

. There was a service going on inside and we could hear the organ and singing. This didn't stop a bus load of tourists going in just before I took the photo above.

Visiting Italian friends in Italy we were often ushered into churches despite services taking place. It seemed “wrong” to us but when in Rome…………

Gordon

 

[Puddleduck]

"camper Contact"

Here you go Alan

Campercontact | All the best motorhome sites at your fingertips

All motorhome sites worldwide on one platform for motorhomers. Includes up-to-date reviews, photos and an overview of beautiful motorhome stopovers.

www.campercontact.com

 

[DBK]

Hi

You most certainly are very adept at roaming around Spain, I wondered if you had had any experience of navigating the M50 around Madrid. coming in from the north and exiting due south. Any tips ? as it looks quite formidable.
Hope your enjoying your trip. In your post you mention "camper Contact" as I am entirely new to this site is this part of the site or something else?.
Any help would be much appreciated
Alan J

I've done the M50 once but that was from the south and going round the west side before peeling off for Santander. I don't remember any difficulties, it isn't the M25 but might be different in the rush hour. I wouldn't worry about it if travelling outside peak times.

To add to Puddleduck 's post there are a number of apps you can use to find sites and aires. I like CamperContact (CC) but also Park4Night (P4N). The other popular one is Search4Sites but I haven't really used it.

I like CC because generally you can get a fair idea about a place by reading the reviews. P4N has more locations but many are just parking places which are not ideal for our PVC which needs to find services every day. But if there is a particular place we want to visit and CC doesn't offer anything then I look on P4N.

 

[Rapido925M]

Hi

You most certainly are very adept at roaming around Spain, I wondered if you had had any experience of navigating the M50 around Madrid. coming in from the north and exiting due south. Any tips ?
Alan J

We circumnavigated Madrid in January 2009 coming down from Bilbao and going to Marbella. I don’t know which of the many motorways took but probably M50: no problem as the traffic just flowed along (lunchtime)

My main memory is of leaving one toll booth, travelling approximately 500m to the next booth and being charged 40c

Gordon

 

[DBK]

A shortish drive today has brought us to Texas!

Or to be more precise Little Texas which is a small swish camperstop run by a Brit. It is mostly MHs but they have an area for motorcycle campers. Close by is the Circuito de Almería which is a popular circuit for bikers. We could hear bikes this afternoon going round the circuit but the noise wasn't intrusive and has stopped now.

This is where we are:

The location is sandwiched between hills on all sides and these hills catch most of any rain coming this way. This creates what is the only desert in Europe, the Tabernas desert.

Around Tabernas, which we will drive through tomorrow several films were made, the most famous probably being A Fistfull of Dollars. Some scenes from Game of Thrones were also filmed here. The actors probably glad of the lack of rain compared to where they shot much of the footage - Northern Ireland.

The site has a good swimming pool, which I failed to photograph but I'm sure you know what they look like - a rectangle of blue water which was delightful to submerse ourselves in before we retreated to the Saloon for a very cold beer.

There is one shaded pitch on the site, and we were given it.

But it's a well organised place.

This is the view from the entrance of the site looking towards the Sierra Alhamilla.

From the same vantage point I took this video.



What is it? I would like to think it's an Iberian wolf cub but it could equally be a feral dog! I've posted it on FB and tagged a Spanish wolf group and hopefully might get an answer soon.

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[DBK]

Forgot to mention we found the first tick of the year on Charlie today. We had treated him with Advantix yesterday and I think it was either dead or ready to drop off.

We've learned that Advantix only works for three weeks on some species of tick, not the standard four weeks. So we will be treating Charlie every 3 weeks from now on.

 

[Rapido925M]

After visiting Taberbas we decided to go through Gergal, where a car parked on the bridge made the road quite narrow. There was also a market taking place (Saturday) and we were escorted through the town by local youths on horseback.

We spent the night on the aire at Canjayar where the goats are walked down the hill and along the main road. A pleasant run through the hills took us to El Ejido, with fantastic views over the plastic greenhouses which proliferate in this area.

Gordon

 

[DBK]

After visiting Taberbas we decided to go through Gergal, where a car parked on the bridge made the road quite narrow. There was also a market taking place (Saturday) and we were escorted through the town by local youths on horseback.

We spent the night on the aire at Canjayar where the goats are walked down the hill and along the main road. A pleasant run through the hills took us to El Ejido, with fantastic views over the plastic greenhouses which proliferate in this area.

Gordon

Thanks, we plan to head roughly that way next week, into the Alpujarra. We've been there before but will go to a different part this time and do some walking around some of the white villages.

 

[royandsharont]

Hi

You most certainly are very adept at roaming around Spain, I wondered if you had had any experience of navigating the M50 around Madrid. coming in from the north and exiting due south. Any tips ? as it looks quite formidable.
Hope your enjoying your trip. In your post you mention "camper Contact" as I am entirely new to this site is this part of the site or something else?.
Any help would be much appreciated
Alan J

Wolfie136 I’ve just done it both ways Burgos to Aranjuez, very easy if you set your sat nav for no tolls. lots of toll roads into Madrid but the M50 is toll free. Late afternoon south from Santander and mid morning north from Aranjuez. I use a Tom Tom

 

[royandsharont]

DBK In the desert area car manufacturers used test out new perspective models. You can detect them because they are camouflaged so you cannot detect the make even. Have seen a few but many years ago now when house hunting.

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[DBK]

DBK In the desert area car manufacturers used test out new perspective models. You can detect them because they are camouflaged so you cannot detect the make even. Have seen a few but many years ago now when house hunting.

I thought we had seen two on the way here. They were like VW microbuses but not a model I was familiar with. A bit of Googling showed they were the electric id.buzz. There were two travelling together so it might have been a magazine test or something like that.

There's a stretch of coast not far from here where the road is used for tests as well. We've seen cars in disruptive paint on it before.

 

[Lenny HB]

Do you get a lot of people wondering what you are doing with all the kit?

Nar, they just think another one of those flipping loonies.

Visiting Italian friends in Italy we were often ushered into churches despite services taking place. It seemed “wrong” to us but when in Rome…………

Gordon

Walked into a church in Venice there was a wedding going on, no one took any notice quite a few others looking at the church but we felt embarrassed.

 

[DBK]

We decided to sit the long weekend out in Little Texas. The forecast was for warm weather!

But I think we are beginning to acclimatise because it didn't feel uncomfortably hot today. Admittedly, it has been slightly cloudy most of the day so we haven't had to suffer from the Sun's glare.

The cloud vanished at the end of the afternoon so we visited the swimming pool for what has become our traditional swim.

Suitably cooled we then visited the little bar for a cold beer.

We might have been helped in coping with the temperatures by breaking out for the first time on this trip the Endless Breeze.

It helped but would have been better if a dog hadn't sat in front of it. Mrs DBK's attempts to coax him away with a segment of tangerine were unsuccessful.

And having shown you the squalor in which we live here's a better view!

Having started a thread recently about cooking steaks in a MH I confess our lunches are not so exotic. We have bread a few times a week with paté and/or cheese but mostly it is salad with cold meats and cheese.

The green thing in the top left on the plate below is an artichoke heart out of a jar. We've had tastier ones, these taste only of olive oil. The salad is the classic tomato, cucumber and lettuce but with the addition of red pepper also out of a jar. I add a Caesar salad dressing which we were surprised to find you can get in supermarkets here in Spain.

Compared to France we've found the lettuce on offer is either Little Gem or Iceberg, neither of which are or favourites. The other thing lacking is the availability of fresh herbs, particularly basil, but we have a bottle of basil oil.

None of the above is a moan about Spain. We are enjoying it here!

We will rough it here until Tuesday then move on to the Alpujarra.

 

[Figaro]

I'm interested to see how you carry fruit in your motorhome.
It looks like a string bag, is that by plan or just what was available ?
I like my fruit, but I've struggled to find a good way to store it without it brusing or prematurely going off.

 

[Littlewheels]

What is it? I would like to think it's an Iberian wolf cub but it could equally be a feral dog! I've posted it on FB and tagged a Spanish wolf group and hopefully might get an answer soon.

It’s a Pedenco, they are very popular with Hunters that run them in packs to disturb the wildlife for shooting particular on a Sunday which is a day to never go into the Campo.

When socialised they make loving Pets as they are highly intelligent hence the ability to service in the wild once abandoned by the hunter.

My own dog is a Bodequero which is often used the same,he was too young to run with the pack and was abandoned at three months when we found him as we have a Spanish property near the Campo.10 years ago.

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