Tuesday 8 March - Onda

Where's Bertie? He's still sitting in the Aire at Onda.
Weather: A few showers and a bit of sunshine, but mainly overcast. (And, as I type, a rumble of thunder swiftly followed by a downpour. )

We did something yesterday afternoon that we have never before done in 11 years of motorhome ownership: we fired up a diesel-powered generator purely to put a bit of power into Bertie's leisure battery. Or to put it another way, with both of Bertie's neighbours having gone out at the same time, we started his engine for a short while, really just to confirm that the low battery reading was due to the quantity of simultaneous draw, rather than because it really was that low.

It's the problem of weather like yesterday's no solar heat gain through the extensive glass of Bertie's cab, and no solar generation via his solar panel. Running the heater more than is our norm, plus charging the usual gadgets, after 24-hours of not putting any charge back into the battery, was a bit much*.

At some point in the evening the rain finally stopped, and although there was a light shower this morning, it petered out not long after we set out from Bertie, heading towards some nearby hills.

Mick only stayed with me for a short while (again, my training needs and his aren't currently well matched), whereas I continued on to do a circuit I'd downloaded. That likely would have worked out well if, at a certain junction, I'd looked at the map rather than assuming. After a steep climb that didn't net the viewpoint for which I'd been hoping, I found myself descending (incredibly slowly!) a steep, technical and erroded mountain bike trail. That led me to a waymarked trail, but not the one I had initially been following. I quickly surveyed my options on the map, and my reroute proved to be good and, with the exception of the bike trail on which I should never have been, the outing was pleasing.

Various paths. My attempts at photos of the limited views weren't worth sharing.

Red = what I was supposed to do; Black = reality.

After second breakfast, a snack, coffee, a crossword and another snack, it was approaching noon by the time we headed out for our second attempt at visiting the castle.

That didn't go well because I managed to go out without a mask (how?!), and even though the castle doesn't involve being indoors at any time, they wouldn't let me in without one. So, we descended to the town, rectified the omission and climbed back up again**.

We didn't come even vaguely closed to another person during our entire visit and were never in an enclosed space, but we abided by the rules***.

The castle was another of those places where clearly a lot of money has been spent, yet it would have been so much better if they'd included more information signs and illustrations explaining what we were seeing. There were 3 signs, all text and mainly explaining the history of the place. The only one that tried to explain the lay out of one of the sections was located outside that section, and my memory isn't good enough these days to retain all the detail to apply it to what I was seeing once we'd entered.

But, enough whinging. Entry was free, it was a diverting way to spend a quarter of an hour, and the views were good, if curtailed by the atmospheric conditions.

View. 

Lunch was next on the agenda and for once I'd pre-selected somewhere to go. It had good reviews, I liked the look of the menu, and it opened at 1300 today. We arrived at 1330 to find it firmly closed. We thus found ourselves at an unattractive bar half way between town and Bertie, where we were served a truly ridiculous amount of food and drink for €10 per head.

My efforts to be discreet with taking the photos means that you can't really see what's on all of the plates.

The quantity and quality of the food was such that we left a tip out of proportion with the price of the meal. I'm still bamboozled as to how anywhere can offer so much food for so little and still make a profit.

After waddling back to Bertie, we've managed to stir ourselves for a small amount of activity this afternoon, in the shape of emptying Bertie's boot so as to mop up the water that accumulated there yesterday from his leaking seam. There wasn't as much as I expected, but as I've been typing this we've had the heaviest shower of the last couple of days, so we'll likely be repeating the endeavour again tomorrow.

In place of fountain of the day (which was just to my left as I took this snap), let's have "house of the day". That's a remarkably tall, thin house, standing up above its neighbours. It went back for about a week and a half too.

^{(*We wanted to replace his leisure battery before this trip, but after extensive research, we found our chosen replacement to be out of stock. Thus we came away banking on getting enough solar power to make his existing leisure battery last another couple of months.
** I failed myself. The first time in the entire 2 years of the pandemic that I've had to buy a mask. All of our others have been made out of materials we already had at home.
***After having to wear masks outdoors and by ourselves at the castle, at lunch we were in a room with 17 other people, only one of whom (the waitress) was required to cover her face. Our observation is that, even though it's no longer required, a lot of people are still wearing masks outside, even when in the sticks and by themselves. The only explanation I can come up with is that there's a general belief that Coronavirus particles hang around in great quantities in the open air, indefinitely, ready to infect. I'm not sure how to reconcile this with how many people are happy to sit unmasked in bars and restaurants. The latter makes me nervous, but in uncrowded areas, I've no issue at all with being outside.)}