Where’s Bertie? He’s at a ‘Camper Park’ just SE of Bétera. It costs €16.50 per night to stay here on a small pitch with 4A of electricity. Toilets, showers and wifi that seems to work well at least some of the time, are included in the price. Exact location: 39.58029, -0.44556
Weather: Sunny until mid-afternoon, when it swiftly clouded over and not long later it started to rain. Warm until that happened.
A recap from yesterday: we went out of our way to get some water; it took us 40 minutes to get that water. Today: we poured our drinking bottles full of it down the drain.
Water in Spain often tastes overly chlorinated, and when I was filling Bertie’s tank yesterday I could smell not just chlorine, but disinfectant too. I didn’t think much of it until later in the day when we came to drink some. It was just about tolerable in coffee and orange squash, but as plain water or in my usual hot drink of water with a slice of lemon, it was undrinkable. It tasted like a swimming pool into which someone had tipped a bottle of TCP.
This morning’s first port of call was thus a supermarket to buy a couple of 8L bottles of water to tide us over to whenever we could next get some acceptable tap water, but before that happened there was another water incident.
At 0630 I sprang out of bed like a scalded cat and ran to the window to find out the source of the noise that had so abruptly woken us. It turned out that the sprinklers on the grass behind Bertie had come on, and it was the noise of a jet of water directed at Bertie’s rear. Fortunately, there was also a groundkeeper present, who kindly redirected the offending jet. A short while later another groundkeeper started cutting grass at the sportsground, and a short while after that the first groundkeeper started leaf blowing just behind us.
So, it was a noisy start to the day, but, considering the location, we’d had a remarkably quiet night.
With nothing on the agenda for today, having bought some bottled water (must look into appropriate filters for future trips) we then sat in Lidl’s car park having a cup of tea, as I’d been unable to finish my first (bleach- and disinfectant-infused) cup of the day.
Poring over the map to try to find somewhere on the way to Bétera that would be worth a visit, I failed in my mission. So, to Bétera we came, driving past the campsite to go to the town’s main car park. There we continued to rehydrate with another hot drink before heading out for a look around. We didn’t see much, finding ourselves walking up and down one street a few times (for good reasons!). On the first foray I noticed a park and popped in to see if there was a water tap there. There was, and a quick sniff, followed by a slurp of a handful of water suggested it tasted fine. So, after another repetition of the street (that one involved buying a car washing sponge and a birthday card), we nipped back to Bertie to return to the park with his water bottles, having first tipped their offensive contents down the drain.
Why not wait until we got to the campsite to fill them? Because I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity for good water, only to pay 50c for 15 litres here (expensive for tap when you consider the low price of bottled water in Spain (8 litres is 72c)) then to find that it’s just as minging as the stuff we already had.
And, um, that’s about it for today. The only other time we’ve been outside* has been for showers (hot, powerful, mains water, no push button, and even a shelf on which to stand your soap and shampoo; luxury!). So, all in all, it’s been very much a water themed day today. Talking of which, tonight’s rain came early. It’s been pitter-pattering on Bertie’s roof since around 1600.
Fountain of the day. Disappointingly, given the theme of the day, it wasn’t running.
(*I did also have to go and check us in at the campsite. The receptionist gave a spiel about Valencia, described how to get there and handed over a map. We are undoubtedly in the small minority of people who come to this place with absolutely no intention at all of venturing into the city.)
Weather: Sunny until mid-afternoon, when it swiftly clouded over and not long later it started to rain. Warm until that happened.
A recap from yesterday: we went out of our way to get some water; it took us 40 minutes to get that water. Today: we poured our drinking bottles full of it down the drain.
Water in Spain often tastes overly chlorinated, and when I was filling Bertie’s tank yesterday I could smell not just chlorine, but disinfectant too. I didn’t think much of it until later in the day when we came to drink some. It was just about tolerable in coffee and orange squash, but as plain water or in my usual hot drink of water with a slice of lemon, it was undrinkable. It tasted like a swimming pool into which someone had tipped a bottle of TCP.
This morning’s first port of call was thus a supermarket to buy a couple of 8L bottles of water to tide us over to whenever we could next get some acceptable tap water, but before that happened there was another water incident.
At 0630 I sprang out of bed like a scalded cat and ran to the window to find out the source of the noise that had so abruptly woken us. It turned out that the sprinklers on the grass behind Bertie had come on, and it was the noise of a jet of water directed at Bertie’s rear. Fortunately, there was also a groundkeeper present, who kindly redirected the offending jet. A short while later another groundkeeper started cutting grass at the sportsground, and a short while after that the first groundkeeper started leaf blowing just behind us.
So, it was a noisy start to the day, but, considering the location, we’d had a remarkably quiet night.
With nothing on the agenda for today, having bought some bottled water (must look into appropriate filters for future trips) we then sat in Lidl’s car park having a cup of tea, as I’d been unable to finish my first (bleach- and disinfectant-infused) cup of the day.
Poring over the map to try to find somewhere on the way to Bétera that would be worth a visit, I failed in my mission. So, to Bétera we came, driving past the campsite to go to the town’s main car park. There we continued to rehydrate with another hot drink before heading out for a look around. We didn’t see much, finding ourselves walking up and down one street a few times (for good reasons!). On the first foray I noticed a park and popped in to see if there was a water tap there. There was, and a quick sniff, followed by a slurp of a handful of water suggested it tasted fine. So, after another repetition of the street (that one involved buying a car washing sponge and a birthday card), we nipped back to Bertie to return to the park with his water bottles, having first tipped their offensive contents down the drain.
Why not wait until we got to the campsite to fill them? Because I didn’t want to pass up an opportunity for good water, only to pay 50c for 15 litres here (expensive for tap when you consider the low price of bottled water in Spain (8 litres is 72c)) then to find that it’s just as minging as the stuff we already had.
And, um, that’s about it for today. The only other time we’ve been outside* has been for showers (hot, powerful, mains water, no push button, and even a shelf on which to stand your soap and shampoo; luxury!). So, all in all, it’s been very much a water themed day today. Talking of which, tonight’s rain came early. It’s been pitter-pattering on Bertie’s roof since around 1600.
(*I did also have to go and check us in at the campsite. The receptionist gave a spiel about Valencia, described how to get there and handed over a map. We are undoubtedly in the small minority of people who come to this place with absolutely no intention at all of venturing into the city.)
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