Where's Bertie? He's still sitting comfortably at the Aire in Tarifa. Exact location: 36.01847, -5.61108 (forgot to include it yesterday, even after my proof-reader pointed out the omission)
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine and warm when in the sun and out of the wind (in fact, not too bad when in the wind either).
I feel that we're not doing an awful lot on this trip. On previous trips it would have been unthinkable for us to be 3 weeks in and not have visited a single church or museum. Once Mick's marathon is over, we might feel more inclined to visit indoor spaces (particularly as I don't think we've ever been in a busy museum in Spain, so I wouldn't consider such an excursion to be a significant risk), but we'll likely still avoid public transport. Even so, whilst our pottering around probably doesn't make for interesting reading for anyone else, after 2 years of mainly sitting in an armchair at home, it is just a delight to be out and about in such a pleasant winter climate, and to be running rotues that we haven't already run hundreds of times over the last two years.*
Talking of which... I started today with a jaunt along the Mediterranean Coast Path, to the east of here. There are paths out of Tarifa in both directions, but by choosing to go east I was getting the 'into the wind' leg out of the way early.
Aside from the fact that it was bone dry and 'crushed stoney' rather than 'dirt and mud' underfoot, and that I could clearly see Africa just across the water, it put me very much in mind of the Welsh coast path.
These snaps aren't particularly illustrative. It seems I only took photos showing flat sections of good path.
The second of these gates that I had to go through was a squeeze and a duck; this one was just a squeeze.
I would have carried on further than I did, except that I'd not been on the path for long when my phone received a message welcoming me to Morocco and telling me what the charges would be to make calls etc. As my plan doesn't include Morocco, and I don't have any credit, that meant that not only could Mick no longer track me, but that I couldn't send him a message telling him what was going on either. I did a few manual searches, looking for a Spanish phone signal, but I couldn't identify an obvious one out of the long list of those available. So, after an hour, I turned back. Oh, how lovely it was to have the wind behind me!
Once back at Bertie and showered, changed, lunched and second lunched, out we went, for a look around Tarifa.
The old town was to where we headed, finding it to be a veritable maze of streets and walkways such that I'm sure it would be very easy to get lost and start walking in circles.
Old town street
Every now and then we popped out into a tiny square, each filled with tables and chairs, all full of chattering diners on this Sunday lunchtime.
The church in the old town
Our other objective of the outing was to go and visit the most southerly point, on the 'island' connected to Tarifa via a causeway. We failed in that mission, as the entance to the island was firmly barred.
If there weren't too many places to see and too little time we could easily be persuaded to spend another day here - it's a nice place with a huge number of eateries with enticing menus - but time is pressing, so we will leave tomorrow, on schedule.
(*Out of mud season we have quite an array of appealing running routes at home. In mud season we are severely limited.)
Weather: Wall-to-wall sunshine and warm when in the sun and out of the wind (in fact, not too bad when in the wind either).
I feel that we're not doing an awful lot on this trip. On previous trips it would have been unthinkable for us to be 3 weeks in and not have visited a single church or museum. Once Mick's marathon is over, we might feel more inclined to visit indoor spaces (particularly as I don't think we've ever been in a busy museum in Spain, so I wouldn't consider such an excursion to be a significant risk), but we'll likely still avoid public transport. Even so, whilst our pottering around probably doesn't make for interesting reading for anyone else, after 2 years of mainly sitting in an armchair at home, it is just a delight to be out and about in such a pleasant winter climate, and to be running rotues that we haven't already run hundreds of times over the last two years.*
Talking of which... I started today with a jaunt along the Mediterranean Coast Path, to the east of here. There are paths out of Tarifa in both directions, but by choosing to go east I was getting the 'into the wind' leg out of the way early.
Aside from the fact that it was bone dry and 'crushed stoney' rather than 'dirt and mud' underfoot, and that I could clearly see Africa just across the water, it put me very much in mind of the Welsh coast path.
I would have carried on further than I did, except that I'd not been on the path for long when my phone received a message welcoming me to Morocco and telling me what the charges would be to make calls etc. As my plan doesn't include Morocco, and I don't have any credit, that meant that not only could Mick no longer track me, but that I couldn't send him a message telling him what was going on either. I did a few manual searches, looking for a Spanish phone signal, but I couldn't identify an obvious one out of the long list of those available. So, after an hour, I turned back. Oh, how lovely it was to have the wind behind me!
Once back at Bertie and showered, changed, lunched and second lunched, out we went, for a look around Tarifa.
The old town was to where we headed, finding it to be a veritable maze of streets and walkways such that I'm sure it would be very easy to get lost and start walking in circles.
Every now and then we popped out into a tiny square, each filled with tables and chairs, all full of chattering diners on this Sunday lunchtime.
Our other objective of the outing was to go and visit the most southerly point, on the 'island' connected to Tarifa via a causeway. We failed in that mission, as the entance to the island was firmly barred.
If there weren't too many places to see and too little time we could easily be persuaded to spend another day here - it's a nice place with a huge number of eateries with enticing menus - but time is pressing, so we will leave tomorrow, on schedule.
(*Out of mud season we have quite an array of appealing running routes at home. In mud season we are severely limited.)
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