Saturday 26 February - Ceutí, Murcia y Granja de Rocamora

Where's Bertie? He's at a free Aire at a petrol station, not far off Autovia 7, just outside the town of Granja de Rocamora. Whilst it's free to stay here, the service point costs €5 (and there's a €20 deposit on the key to the Aire's entrance gate). Exact location: 38.15432, -0.88282
Weather: Grey, cool morning, with a few shortlived sprinkles of rain. Warmer afternoon with some sunshine.

It's an easy week for me on the running calendar, so my long run wasn't very long this morning (although I suppose these things are relative; it was 16km). Having stayed at the Aires in the neighbouring towns of Lorqui, Ceutí and Archena before, I knew where I was going - along the river. My turning point was not far short of the Aire at Archena.

Plenty of water in this river. Most riverbeds we've seen thus far have been dry.

Once back at Bertie I made haste to get showered and breakfasted in good time to go out for second breakfast. A transient rain shower just as we were about to step out of the door didn't deter us, but did have us reaching for our warm jackets. A good call, as it was just 14 degrees as we sat at a pavement table for our café y tostada.

Café y tostada

When we went to that café in 2020, we questioned the bill, because we couldn't believe they were really selling two coffees and two servings of toast with toppings, for just €3*. The fact that we went there on two consecutive days with the same bill confirmed it wasn't an error. Prices are higher now, although €3.80 for the same order is still reasonable. (*Hmmm, just looked back through my camera reel from Feb 2020 and it looks like maybe we only had demi tostadas on that occasion.)

The same place also had a fine display of cakes, so as we paid the bill we chose a couple to take away and got a stick of bread too.

Yum!

We went sharsies, and agreed that the big yellow one was disappointing, with barely any flavour. The chocolate one was exactly as I'd hoped when I chose it.

There was no tarrying once we were back at Bertie and after a quick emptying of tanks, off to Murcia we went.

We stayed at the Aire at Murcia on two non-consecutive nights in 2020 (indeed, the last meal out we had pre-Covid turned out to be at the Ikea next to the Aire). It's not an attractive Aire, being in a big retail park, yet is popular with long-termers who ignore the unenforced 72-hour limit, as well as with people who want to visit Murcia. On both of our previous stays we were able to find a free slot in the Aire, although by the end of each day it was full and would overflow into the adjacent car park overnight. On this occasion there wasn't a spot to be had within the Aire and there were dozens of vans in the adjacent car park. We joined them, but only for as long as it took us to search Decathlon for the two items I was after (they had neither, so a wasted trip).

With no merit in staying put, as we had no intention of going into Murcia again (we've been three times before), we travelled the extra 20 minutes along the motorway to this place. Being a petrol station not far off the motorway, it doesn't sound enticing, but it's surprisingly nice.

Ten spaces, marked out with newly planted bushes. View of palm trees and hills in front of us.

Why would a petrol station install a facility such as this, including a secure automatic gate, and then allow people to stay for free? The only logical answer harks back to what Cathy, who we met at La Peza last week, told us: the Spanish Government is giving €40k grants to any town that wants to install a motorhome parking area.

Once here Mick was happy to fritter away the rest of the afternoon, but I felt like we'd not really done anything today (perhaps not an accurate view, on reflection!), and with a castle just 2.2km away, it seemed like a good objective for a leg-stretch.

Awful snap of the castle. Can you even see it, on top of the nearest mound?

From half way up the mound

Google's directions led us a merry dance (no Google, you can't just take us to the nearest point on a road, then put a dotted line straight up the rock to the castle!), but a short backtrack revealed the entrance to the steep access path (pretty newly laid, by appearances).

We knew that you can't access the castle itself, so only went up there for the view:

Bertie's over yonder, but behind a stand of trees

There was another couple arrived at the castle entrance within moments of us. They left a little before us, and as we started following them along the road, I began to suspect they may be our neighbours (they looked like tourists but it's not remotely a touristy town, and the only thing to see is the castle, so it stood to reason that the only non-locals who visit the castle are motorhomers). So they proved to be. They've got a good paint job on their van:

I'll finish with a slightly random snap:

As I ran along the river, I passed this section of flyover. A relatively short section, with no hint of a joining road at either end, and no hint of any ongoing work either. There was another similar piece further up the valley. I have no recollection of seeing these in 2020, but maybe they were being worked on at that point, so weren't remarkable?

(A forgotten detail from today: For runs of an hour and a half or more, I take food with me. On this trip I've been mainly having small, soft, sweet rolls slathered with homemade jam. Until today I've always cut the roll in half and put a piece in each pocket. Today I left it whole. When I came to have my first bite, I took it out of my pocket, fumbled it and threw it on the ground, where it rolled through the dirt and dust. I picked it up and examined it, but had to conclude that it was unsalvageable. Such a shame, particularly the loss of the jam (I'm half way through my last jar from last year's batch). I will be going back to cutting them in half in future!)