25th March 2024 – Searching for the sun

We chose the scenic route to cross the south coast and after getting around Malaga, the A92 headed east and we soon had some lovely views. Coming back inland from the coast gave us mountains to look at, a few had tops with snow, farmland with cattle in various colours, acres of vegetables being cut by hand with large lorries waiting to be loaded. There were olive and almond trees, orange and lemon trees where we could see both blossom and fruit on the trees as we passed by. The further east we got the landscape changed to browns, rocks and dry river beds. Did that hold a promise of sun? The sky was still grey and temperatures only around 16° but the forecast was promising. Eventually we settled at a campsite near Isla Plana, and went for a very blustery walk next day beside a murky looking sea, but we did find a couple of caches and had a coffee before walking back. Oh well, tomorrow could be better.

On the last day there was a definitely an improvement, we walked the opposite direction and found a couple more caches, the sea looked better under a blue sky although it was still fairly turbulent and I found a nice small, natural arch about 3 feet high to photograph, not sure how long it will last. After a jug of sangria we made our way back, in the evening we watched as the fading sun lit up the mountains and clouds.

Heading north of Alicante to Villajoyosa, we met up with Phil and Rose who had kindly reserved a pitch for us. Lots of catching up to do with the aid of beers and snacks, we chatted on until early evening. The next couple of days seemed to have a pattern, sunny mornings, clouding over and getting windy or rainy. The motorhome got a clean up, 2 loads of washing dried in the sun, and I finished another book. Walking into the town reminded me of our last visit here in 2018 as we looked at the colourful houses lining the street overlooking the beach. We stopped for a drink on the wide promenade, the sun disappeared and the wind increased, so by the time we walked back it wasn’t quite as pleasant.

After 4 days we moved on and visited friends Trevor and Irene in Parcent, enjoying a meal together in the local village of Alcalalí where we had visited for the almond festival in previous years.  It was lovely to catch up again and hear what has been happening in Parcent, and we came away with a gift of a lovely bag of lemons, fabulous for our gin and tonics! We stayed nearby at a really new and modern campsite in Benigembla which was first class, quiet, huge pitches and beautiful mountain views all around. We messaged Phil and Rose about it, and a day later they joined us so we had a great time again, including an extra day stay for us to have lunch together in the village.

There were some beautiful artworks on the buildings within the village and some are still being created, it was lovely walking around to see them all and admire the creativity.

Heading north again we headed to the Ebro Delta for some birding and geocaching, the two went very well together and we spent an enjoyable first evening collecting 9 caches and adding many birds to our list. The following day we walked nearly 5 miles in the opposite direction, collected a further 8 caches and added great white egret, glossy ibis, zitting cisticola and purple heron among others; total so far is 58 species. We plan to return to this area again one September for the rice harvest and a different range of birds.

In a change of direction and initially following the coast towards Tarragona, we turned west and made our way to the small town of Almenar just passed Lleida where there was a free Aire for the night. A walk around showed us there wasn’t much there, a church high up overlooking wonderful views, and that was it really.

We pushed on towards Jaca just south of the French border where we stayed on another free camper stop area close into the town. On a grey but warm day and having already visited the fort here on a previous occasion, we did a geocaching walk around seeing parts of the town previously missed. We found some parks, statues, and signs attached to some trees, in braille only, that someone would have had to climb over a hedge to get to, very odd! Also a scenic lawn of daisies, woodpile and an old bike just right for a photo.

Now the Spanish section of our trip is over. The original plan of returning home through Portugal was changed due to bad weather, and another change resulted in us abandoning the possibility of another horrible ferry journey across Biscay. Instead we favoured driving up through France to Caen for a shorter ferry to Portsmouth. The joys of motorhoming are being able to replan and change on a whim, so next stop France!