Two Go Exploring Spain

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.

PXL_20230403_152803944.jpg


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! :)

PXL_20230403_124406126.jpg


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

There was a solar farm up here too.

PXL_20230403_125646560.jpg


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

PXL_20230403_125704390.jpg


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.

PXL_20230403_130029635.jpg


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.

PXL_20230403_122558467.jpg


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.

PXL_20230403_131624730.jpg


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.

Screenshot_20230403_170334_Maps.jpg
 
Last edited:
Hugoman said:
And did you know that without the Brits there would be no Champagne…because the Brits invented the very sturdy bottle .......
Click to expand...
Yebbut, although an Englishman invented the toilet seat it took a Frenchman to come up with the idea of putting a hole in the middle.
 
Hugoman said:
And did you know that without the Brits there would be no Champagne…because the Brits invented the very sturdy bottle which allowed the fermatation process to happen without exploding the bottle …not that the French would admit that of course 😊 Dom Perpignan has a lot to thank us for…and we him of course…
Click to expand...
Very true and they didn't even invent the process.

Christopher Merrett was the first person to describe the ‘methode champenoise’ aka the traditional method of making Champagne, several years before Dom Perignon began experimenting.
 
On Charlie's first walk this morning I photographed a couple boxes mounted on poles. This was the first.

PXL_20230404_074400472.jpg


I've seen ones like this elsewhere in Spain and they are designed for Rollers I think. The Roller is a Jackdaw sized bird with blue and brown plumage. It looks striking in the books but I've not yet actually seen one! They winter in South Africa and probably won't arrive for another month.

These boxes are for something very different - bats, of which there were a lot flying over the pond by the aire last night.

PXL_20230404_074717162.jpg


Before leaving this morning we visited the shop and arrived just in time for a short video about olive oil production. We had been welcomed in by a man with excellent English who gave a running commentary on the video. As I suspected the long lines of small olive trees are harvested by machine and are ready for for their first crop ten years after planting. The machines looked identical to the ones used for harvesting grapes.

After washing the olives they are dried with a blast of air then milled and pressed. The video was short on detail here but the main machine was a sort of corkscrew press with the slot in the screw getting progressively shallower. The oil is then separated from any water present, by gravity in a tank I think, before it is ready for immediate bottling. Unlike wine, it needs no aging, fresher is better.

We then had a tasting, and it was as involved as any wine tasting I've done! There were six oils to test and we could both taste a difference between number one and number six but the subtleties between say three and four were lost on us! :)

PXL_20230404_083045280.jpg


All the oils carried the numbers 6, 8 or 10. This referred to the kilos of olives required to make one litre. The larger number means from an early harvest. Later harvests have more oil. We bought a bottle of the one on the left in the image below. The "origin" is where the variety comes from, the olives are all grown on the farm which is much further north than most Spanish producers.

PXL_20230404_125937737.jpg


Only afterwards did we see there were some pairing suggestions at the bottom - and we've bought one which goes with chocolate of all things! We also bought a larger bottle of the "8" which they said is for both salads and cooking. The "6" is for cooking only.

After a quick resupply at a Mercadona we drove through some barren country to the free aire at Albalate del Arzobispo, CamperContact #49365.

Screenshot_20230404_182526_Maps.jpg


On the way here we passed a curious ruined village or town. A bit of research revealed it was the old Belchite (there is new one now) which was destroyed in the Civil War. We should have stopped. :(

There's not a lot to see here in Albalate and the church on the top of the hill overlooking the aire was firmly shut. This was the view from up there. In the top right a stork is sitting on a nest atop the tower.

PXL_20230404_122657231.jpg


These bum-shaped seats near the aire were amusing. :)

PXL_20230404_125003894.jpg


Onwards into mountains tomorrow and a campsite for a few days - if they have room!
 
Last edited:
I’m sure they will have plenty of room for you. The campsites on the coast are clearing rapidly with lots of space and despite it being Spanish school holidays we are encountering very few Spanish campers.

As an interesting aside I spoke to a Swedish camper at Los Madriles in Isla Plana today. He has been here since October. He said there are only 3 Swedish vans left now but there were 60!
 
They look very much like bat boxes.
I bought one a few years ago and the advice was it had to be 5 metres off the ground and facing North in order to get the best chance of bats.

We know we have bats in the back garden somewhere, but I couldnt tell you if they have inhabited or not.
The owl box was a complete disaster and we definitely have those around chatting away to each other. Sending that one over to daughter number 2 who really lives out in the country
 
The problem of where to stay for the Easter weekend seems to have solved itself - we are probably going to stay at Camping Beceite. :) Plan A was to stay here until Saturday then move to a site on the coast but I kept my options open when booking in and asked if we could stay another couple of nights. They were happy with this but asked us to confirm on Friday as they are otherwise full this weekend. We only need to pay when we leave. Hopefully our lottery numbers will come up on Saturday so we can afford to leave. :) But learning this site is full over Easter then any site on the coast near here is more than likely to be as well.

We may yet move on Saturday, probably to an aire if we did. We'll see how we get on. The site has a restaurant which serves Sicilian food of all things! We will give it a try - or two if we stay the whole weekend. :)

This is where we are, just on the edge of the mountains. Blue blob just left of the centre.

Screenshot_20230405_180617_Maps.jpg


Pitches here are a bit undefined. The Dutch couple in the white Toyota are leaving tomorrow so we might pinch their spot. :)

PXL_20230405_160734763.jpg


I gave Charlie a walk this afternoon. The river is very clear and he enjoyed a swim. Only afterwards did I see the sign prohibiting dogs and the threat of a €50 fine!

PXL_20230405_133127292 (1).jpg


I think it's only at recognised bathing spots dogs are banned, elsewhere on the river you should be safe, but no one said anything - this is Spain!

I was hoping to do some radio activations here. There is a hill above the campsite which is on the Summits On The Air (SOTA) list as never having been activated, that is, no one has taken a radio up to the top and operated from there. On my walk this afternoon I scouted out a possible route to the top but soon gave up! The hill is covered in escarpments, steep rock and dense vegetation in places! The image below may not show this well but scanning with binoculars revealed no obvious safe route to the top, which is on the left in this photo.

PXL_20230405_130355467.jpg


There is another summit the other side of the valley. This has been activated before, which is of no consequence. I may try for it on Friday. It's a much longer walk but it does benefit from actual footpaths! :)
 
A reasonably quiet day here for us. Mrs DBK used the site washing machine in the morning although the time taken slipped into the afternoon as the machine, a domestic model, took ages. But at €5 for a wash and use of the tumble dryer the cost was cheap by normal campsite rates. It was based on an honesty system, pay reception and then just use the machines, no tokens required. Cheapskates could try missing out the "pay reception" stage of course - and I'm guessing this has been done before. :)

While this was going on I wandered into Beceite where the centre is more attractive than first impressions of the town gained from driving around it to the campsite.

PXL_20230406_085859585 (1).jpg


The purpose of the visit was to visit the supermercado, which is very well hidden on Google Maps and only appears if you zoom right in to the centre. But it does exist and the reason it is hard to spot on Google Maps might be because it is hard to spot even when you are standing outside it!

PXL_20230406_091404894 (1).jpg


Inside, the tiny shop is not much larger than our living room. Nothing fresh such as fruit or vegetables was on offer but they had a good cold meat counter with a range of hams and cured sausage. My shopping list from Mrs DBK only had three things on it. I failed at the first item, grapefruit, they didn't even have tinned grapefruit but I did buy a tin of mixed fruit, a fruit cocktail to remind me of my childhood! :) Toilet paper was a tick as was the third item on the list - bacon. Amazingly they had a large bit of bacon which they cut 6 slices off for me. Wine wasn't on the list but I knew we needed some so that was another tick.

The reason for the shopping trip is we had planned to move from here on Saturday but we are going to stay until Monday. The Spanish don't include Monday in the Easter holiday period so it should in theory be a normal day here.

This photograph may be a puzzle, it's a fish shop next to the supermarket and isn't shown on Google Maps.

PXL_20230406_091345475 (1).jpg


I'm not sure if it is a permanent shop or is just here for Easter. I've submitted it as an amendment to Google Maps anyway. :)

Later in the afternoon we did a walk from the site, starting in the village and walking up the valley. The road beside the river is narrow but has a lot of traffic. I noticed this yesterday but coming from the opposite direction hadn't seen the signs.

PXL_20230406_125957758.jpg


If you look up the website https://www.beceite.es/ you will see a few images of what it's all about. You have to buy a €5 ticket in advance, which is checked by a man at the start of the road, and are then allowed to drive up to the end of the road where there is a footpath, including an elevated catwalk, running up a gorge between cliffs. There is also rock art, some dating back 3,500 years showing humans and animals.

The river is crystal clear down here in the village and must be even more so nearer the source. You can do it on foot from the village but it's a 20km return hike if you go to the very end. We may pass on this. :)

Our walk was gentler.

PXL_20230406_131158376.jpg


But I'm planning on a longer hike tomorrow, taking my radio kit up to the top of a nearby peak, the 1032m Perigañol. It looks relatively easy with a path and even signposts. The climb up the path is about 350m of ascent and in total the route should be about a 10km round trip.

If you don't hear from me again you will know why. :)

Subscribers  do not see these advertisements

 
Last edited:
I once went to a campsite in Stoupa in The Peloponnese and the washing machine took 2 hours ! I could have flown back to my washing machine at home and done it quicker
 
I've been quiet for the last few days but not entirely inactive. On Friday I wandered up to the top of a local hill, marked EA2/TE-016 in this photo but it is known as the 1032m Perigañol on maps.

PXL_20230406_074854765~2.jpg


The shot is taken from the campsite and it may not look very far away but it was a brisk 45 minute walk along the road to the start of the path to the summit.

PXL_20230407_074744018.jpg


The path was steep with lots of loose stones but was well marked with the yellow and white stripes of a local path, as opposed to a GR path where the colours are red and white.

PXL_20230407_074755444.jpg


It was only 2 km to the top but it took me an hour of slow plodding to reach it.

Where you find a curious metal hut with windows besides which I set up my radio gear.

PXL_20230407_085523102.jpg


Only the mast in the middle was mine, the others were already here when I arrived. :) The hut, now disused I think, must have been for fire watching.

The radio stuff was reasonably successful. This was only the 4th "activation" of the summit and the first for 6 years. - It was also the first activation by a UK operator.

I started with Morse, or CW as it is know in Ham radio circles and managed to get the 4 contacts required to qualify the activation. Switching from Morse to a voice mode I was almost deafened by the amount of noise I could hear. It sounded like a solar storm was in progress but checking online suggested nothing alarming was happening with the Sun. I'm still not sure what the problem was. Hopefully just some sort of local interference and will cure itself when we go somewhere else. Otherwise, the set has developed a fault.

In voice mode I managed to speak with someone on Tenerife but towards the end of our exchange we were interrupted by another station calling over the top of us. Normally this would be a bit irritating, there are procedures for checking if a frequency is in use but on this occasion I wasn't bothered as the callsign I was hearing began with the letters ZL which means New Zealand! I could hear him well but he couldn't really hear me and only managed to understand a few letters of my callsign. It probably didn't help that here in Spain I was using the callsign EA2/M0WIV/P which is quite a mouthful to send to the other side of the World. :)

In way of compensation the views from the top were good.

PXL_20230407_075308285.jpg


This is a map of who I contacted, sadly with no link to New Zealand. :)

earth_postcard_1680873308.jpg


In the photo of the cabin above you may see a grey pillar. I suspected it was a Spanish trig point and it was. This plate below it was interesting.

PXL_20230407_085543496.jpg


It is known as a Vértice and if my translation is correct the writing says the destruction of it is permitted by law. I can only assume like UK trig points they are now obsolete. Talking of the UK we have an obscure branch of amateur radio based on trig points. You have to operate from within 30m of the trig point for it to count. I had thought only we were mad enough to do this but the Spanish do it as well. An obscure Spanish website revealed that this vértice had never been activated but I can't claim it as you have to operate for a minimum of an hour beside it to qualify, and I didn't.

It took only 45 minutes to return to the road and then another 45 minutes to the campsite where I had a quick shower followed by a cold beer! Total distance walked was 11km according to my GPS. The distance wasn't a problem but I was struggling on the ascent. I need to some more hills to get fit!

In the evening we ate in the camp restaurant, which is very popular with locals, particularly on this Easter weekend.

As I mentioned before it specialises in Sicilian food and even the house white, which was good, came from there.

The menu.

PXL_20230407_175958145 (1).jpg


The Carnes a Baja Temperatura looked tempting, the meat is cooked at a low temperature for 12 hours, but I wanted some carbs after the walk in the morning. :)

I had a Burratina pizza. The burratina is the thing in the middle, it's a sort of soft mozzarella.

PXL_20230407_181135814 (1).jpg


It was very tasty!

Tomorrow we hope to stay in the Ebro Delta for a few days.
 
Last edited:
I forgot in the post above to mention my recent wine buying error. :)

I had bought some wine in the little shop in Beceite, choosing from the cheaper end of their range on offer which were all either side of about €5. The total bill was a bit more than I expected but I paid anyway and only looked at the till receipt when I got back to the MH. One of the bottles was €15.50! :oops:

But we tried it today before lunch and it is was really excellent.

PXL_20230409_134332827.jpg


Made by a Swiss couple not too far from here. More details on their website where they also explain what a Venta is. You can buy from them direct and the price for the 2018 we had is exactly what it was in the shop. I would have considered 2018 a bit old for a white but there was nothing flat about this one.

Home page - VENTA D'AUBERT

www.ventadaubert.com www.ventadaubert.com
 
Last edited:
Great interesting read. (y)

DBK said:
Switching from Morse to a voice mode I was almost deafened by the amount of noise I could hear. It sounded like a solar storm was in progress but checking online suggested nothing alarming was happening with the Sun. I'm still not sure what the problem was.
Click to expand...
Could it be induced RF interference from being close to the tin shed?
Maybe the users of the other aerials only use Morse (because by the time they've climbed up there they haven't enough breath for speech)?
 
Great read, thanks, 🤞🏻 you don’t have the wind problems we had in the delta. We’ve been walking along a GR route today to La Azhoia in Murcia, lovely weather. Safe journey

Subscribers  do not see these advertisements

 
Spriddler said:
Great interesting read. (y)


Could it be induced RF interference from being close to the tin shed?
Maybe the users of the other aerials only use Morse (because by the time they've climbed up there they haven't enough breath for speech)?
Click to expand...
I've tried it at the campsite and it was the same. I'm hoping it will be better when we move away from this area. Is there a secret bunker/radar station here?

I managed a QSO on 15m SSB today into Wales who gave me 55 and said the audio was fine. So it's transmitting OK, just the received signal is very noisy.
 
All one day just pre-Covid when my sons and I were riding our motorbikes in the Picos mountains the normally excellent 3 way radio comms system in our helmets became unusable due to loud background noise. Later that evening there was the mother and father of a thunderstorm and next day they were fine.
 
We've made it to the Ebro Delta!

The exclamation mark is because the day didn't start well because the 'van didn't start either this morning. The cab battery I now realise has been on the way out for some time. It has been cranking slowly recently but these things creep up gradually and you get used to slow cranking and begin to think it is normal. It wasn't!

After a few attempts which each ended with the starter solonoid doing a woodpecker impression I 'phoned the CMC's Red Pennant Line and got through to the helpful Oliver who was clearly working from home on Easter Monday. Enquires at the cab office had previously proved unsuccessful and my Spanish didn't run to wandering around the site asking "have you any jump leads"

To cut things short within an hour a mechanic turned up at the site and got us started and he also told us where we could buy a battery, which was the problem which was most troubling me.

Less than a 15 minute drive to the next town where at the address given - I renewed acquaintance with our mechanic!

But he sorted us out in short order.

PXL_20230410_103033914.jpg


They did a thorough job. The man pictured above wasn't the one who changed the battery. He was brought in afterwards to check the work and then measure the voltages with engine off and on. He recorded 14.11 volts with the engine running which was pronounced "bueno". :)

€205 later we were on our way to Camping Eucalyptus in the Ebro Delta. It's what I might call a classic Spanish campsite with dusty ground and the said eucalyptus trees but after the morning's adventure we are happy to be here.

Final thought, and suggested by our dog Charlie as his least favourite place on the trip..

PXL_20230410_144602867.jpg


The sign may be confusing. It's Catalán for "dog shower". Rubbish design but more on that tomorrow perhaps. :)

This is where we are now.

Screenshot_20230410_192032_Maps.jpg


Zoomed out. Blue blob centre of the screen.

Screenshot_20230410_192218_Maps.jpg


Tomorrow, some bird watching. :)
 

Join us or log in to post a reply.

To join in you must be a member of MotorhomeFun

Join MotorhomeFun

Join us, it quick and easy!

Join us

Log in

Already a member? Log in here.

Latest journal entries

Back
Top