4 - 6 March - Archena, Murcia and Bellús

Wednesday 4th
Where was Bertie? the Aire at Archena
Weather: Sunny and warm, but breezy again.

An 18-mile run started my day (just over 3 for Mick who set out with me). With the temperature (21 degrees) and the wind, the last few miles felt hard.

A couple of hours of rest and recovery (mainly eating and drinking!) and we walked across town to revisit the restaurant where we lunched last time we were here (it being the only place we'd found on that visit serving a Menu del Dia). What a blow: it doesn't open on a Wednesday!

To stay an extra day just to go out for lunch, or to go? Decisions, decisions...

Thursday 5th
Where was Bertie? the Aire by Ikea on the north side of Murcia.
Weather: Mainly sunny, albeit with some cloud building this afternoon. Breezy again this afternoon.

'Go' was the answer. By 10am Bertie was settled into the Aire at the retail park and not long afterwards we were parting with more cash at Decathlon. Mick's mock-Crocs, with holes worn in the soles, have now been replaced and a few other (completely essential, honest...) items may just have slipped into that basket too.

Via Bertie to offload our purchases, the next 3 hours were spent in Ikea's restaurant, where elevenses rolled nicely into lunch and lots of downloading was done. Should have taken my Kindle as I'm rattling through books at the moment. Hopefully the few titles I've got left unread will last until we next find wifi.

The (huge!) pork knuckle was to be recommended. My veggie not-meatballs were not.

We didn't leave without a store purchase too - another (belated) birthday present for Mick*.

Friday 6th
Where's Bertie? He's at a municipal Aire next to the dam in Bellús. It costs €2 per night to stay here (including electricity, if you're lucky enough and near enough to nab one of the hook-up points, which we're not). Exact location: 38.94085, -0.48048.
Weather: Some heavy dark cloud giving us just sunny intervals today and keeping the temperature down to 16 degrees. Windy.

On reflection, we should have left Murcia once we'd finished at Ikea yesterday, or having failed to realise that was the best move, we should have made better use of our afternoon by nipping over to the supermarket. As it was, we left this morning before the supermarkets were open and thus had to make a detour which involved battling town streets in Alcoi then having to abort, at the last moment, our attempt to enter the supermarket car park when we realised that the height barrier (unhelpfully not specifying its height) was probably a few centimetres lower than Bertie. That left us needing to do a multi-point manouevre along the (fortunately wide!) pavement to get back out onto the road, from where we spotted a Bertie-sized space in the next side road.

Our drive to that point had taken us up-up-up over 2000', where it had been suddenly-pushed-across-the-road windy, but we expected that once we'd left Alcoi the rest of the journey would be unremarkable. Alas no. After having to put right a couple of missed junctions, Google then tried to send us down a barriered track (or so we thought; we walked that way later and discovered that it is a road). We finally reached Bellús, where signposts at the entrance to the village indicated the 'Area de Autocaravana', but then didn't give any more guidance as to how to work our way through the maze of streets. We made it here on the third pass and (by coincidence, not design) parked right behind a British motorhome we were parked with in Ricote (about a 3-hour drive away) the week before last.

It was gone noon by then, so I set about making coffee for elevenses, whilst Mick went for a nosey around. He didn't see the kerb immediately outside of Bertie's door and is now sitting with a bag of frozen beans strapped onto his swollen, twisted ankle.

Will it be well enough to walk up river to see the caves and cave paintings tomorrow? We'll see.

The reservoir, which had white tops on the waves when we passed it in Bertie earlier. The top two of these snaps were taken from the viewpoint, which would be much more effective if it didn't have such big trees between it and the water! The bottom snap was taken from the dam.

Looking the other way off the dam. Can you see Bertie?

The Spanish know how to do picnic area barbecues!

This afternoon's wanderings (into the village, up to the top of the dam, along the river) have revealed evidence that the area in which the Aire is located is part of a recreational development, the like of which is seen all over Spain, but for some reason here it has been semi-abandoned. The wide well-constructed pathways have been left to be reclaimed by nature and viewpoint railings have rotted/fallen away. The football pitch just up the road is now an enclosed, weed-covered wasteland that has clearly not been suitable for the playing of any ball games for many years. The swimming pool in whose car park we are sitting looks abandoned, but maybe it opens in mid-summer. The town has, however, decided to do something with the space, having installed a service point and turned the disused car park over to motorhomes. All they ask is for €2 per night to be paid at the town hall (I say 'they ask', but I only knew about the need to pay because I'd seen it on the Park4Night App. We've seen no signage in or near the Aire to suggest that payment is required, however, there were plenty of entries ahead of ours in the register in the town hall).

Looking down the valley from a viewpoint near the Aire


^{(*Ongoing joke between us. Last year when we bought a cheap plastic serving spoon at an Ikea in Germany, Mick presented it to me as a birthday present and many a mention has been made since about what a good birthday present it was. Today I treated Mick to a pack of tea towels as he has been complaining lately that our collection are all wearing thin.)}

Monday & Tuesday 2-3 March - N of Mazarrón and Archena

Where's Bertie? After 10 nights' absence, he's back in the Aire at Archena. Yesterday he was at the Repsol petrol station to the N of Mazarrón.
Weather: Yesterday was sunny after a slightly overcast start, but windy. Today has been gloriously sunny, with a stiff breeze building this afternoon.

Bertie was being gently rocked by the wind as I set out for my run yesterday morning. He was being less gently rocked by the time I got back. Having established that it was a south-westerly, I opted to run in that direction first, so I could get the 'battling against' bit out of the way. It turned out that I was semi-sheltered for much of the time, although it was only when I uploaded my route afterwards that I realised that was because I'd (fortuitously!) taken a wrong turn early on and not followed the route I'd plotted.

Taken as I hit the coast and started feeling the full brunt of the wind.

Taken just after I turned and started enjoying the strong tail wind.

We didn't hang around in Puerto de Mazarrón once I'd breakfasted. Mick's laptop needed charging again, so we were heading back to the Repsol station, and if we were going to pay for electricity then we may as well make the most of it by getting there sooner rather than later.

The wind really picked up as the morning went on. I don't think we hit the forecast of gusts of 48mph, but poor Bertie pitched and rolled the day away. With sand and dirt being flung all over, it was no hardship to stay indoors.

Yesterday's stop at the Respol station was the first stage of a period of repetition that will likely last until the end of this week. Today we went from one petrol station to another, revisiting the BP station by Ceutí where we did laundry a couple of weeks ago. We were later arriving today and there were already a couple of motorhomers (plus a couple of locals) using the laundrette. Another couple of vans arrived before we left; we're obviously not the only ones to appreciate a good quality self-service laundry facility where you can park on the premises.

It was a toss-up then between Ceutí (slightly nearer) and Archena (nicer surroundings; easier access to the riverside path).

We'll likely be here for a couple of nights before returning to the Aire by Ikea just outside of Murcia, where we will sit in Ikea for many hours availing ourselves of their wifi whilst drinking coffee, eating cake and probably having lunch too (not had any wifi for weeks; there's a lot of stuff to be done!). That will then mark the end of our repetition and Bertie's nose will be turned northwards for a long journey (by our usual pootling standards) to skip up past Valencia to an area we've not visited before. Unless anything noteworthy happens in the meantime, I'll probably not post again until we get there.

Sunday 1 March - Puerto de Mazarrón

Where's Bertie? He's sitting in the street of a long-ago abandoned housing development on the edge of Puerto de Mazarrón. Exact location: 37.57327, -1.26547.
Weather: Overcast for much of the day, finally clearing late this afternoon.

Just before the shop at La Azohia closed yesterday afternoon, I nipped in for some bread for today, as shops just don't open in Spain on a Sunday and it's unusual even to find a bakery open unless in a large town.

Then this morning, as I ran through Isla Plana (the next settlement along the coast from La Azohia), a van was just being loaded outside of the Panaderia. As I ran past the shop in La Azohia some while later, that same bread van was unloading and it was clear that the shop was open. Harrumph! We could have had fresh bread!

The chapel in Isla Plana, snapped mid-run

Then we drove to Puerto de Mazarrón and as we passed Lidl (behind which we are parked) we saw a big banner saying 'Open on Sundays'. What is going on? It's such a universal truth that shops are closed on a Sunday. Why is this area proving to house exceptions?

We nipped into Lidl for some pastries for elevenses and every voice I heard was speaking English. Could the Sunday trading purely be due to the demand of holidaymakers/immigrants who are used to being able to shop 7 days a week?

View from Bertie's door. Two blocks towards town the houses were finished and are inhabited. One block along (as visible on the right of this snap) the houses were abandoned before completion. All the other blocks are lying empty as wasteland, but with all of the roads and pavements having been constructed.

Continuing the shopping theme, we visited Tesco this afternoon (called 'The Food Co', but fully stocked with Tesco labels). It's apparently currently the only Tesco store in Spain and on the one hand my gut reaction is: Why? What's wrong with shopping in local (even if German in origin!) supermarkets? But, on the other hand I completely understand that holiday makers and British immigrants like to have certain familiar products that just aren't available out here - which is exactly how we came to visit the store: in search of squash (as in cordial; pumpkins are widely available). Our squash mission was successful*, I was served by Shiela who spoke with a Scottish accent, and it felt wrong to complete the transaction with 'Thank you' rather than 'Gracias'.

In between shop visits, we took ourselves off for a wander and found ourselves at a small but pleasant beachside and port, where the restaurants were doing a roaring trade (some even had queues) and it was all bustling.

Looking along the beachside promenade

^{(*We drink local tap water, which on this trip has generally been different levels of 'swimming pool' in flavour. Squash has become highly desirable to mask the taste of the water.)}

Saturday 29 February - La Azohía

Where's Bertie? He's still being mesmerised by the Med in La Azohía.
Weather: Some high cloud around and still poor air clarity. Warm and calm, though.

It's Saturday and whether it's because it's nearly March (and we've clicked over from 'not a sensible time to go to the beach' to 'weekend beach trips season!') or because it's Spanish school holidays (I wouldn't have a clue), there was an influx of beachgoing, strolling visitors to La Azohía today, giving us plenty of people-watching entertainment out of Bertie's front window.

Snapped on this morning's run. The anglers were out in force early on. You may be able to make out the two who are standing a distance out into the sea, but only up to their knees.

The usual "What are we doing today" sort of discussion took place this morning, with today's emphasis being on staying or going. I don't think we reached a firm conclusion, which means we're still here.

Whilst Mick completed (for now) the work he's been doing, I finished off the hat I've been knitting, although I don't think it'll be called into use any time soon. We popped across the road for a photoshoot this afternoon and either I had a bout of paranoia, or people stared at our antics.

Our afternoon stroll was on the GR92 route along the coast to the west, to the beach at Isla Plana...

Isla Plana beach - the GR92 runs along the top edge, but it's a good firm grit/clay surface. No ankle-shaping sand here.

Looking back along the coastal walkway to La Azohía

...on our way taking us past a large area of polytunnels. We'd first seen the great swathe of polythene from up high yesterday...
 

You can see it in this snap (through the haze of poor air quality), although it looks less like water here than it did to the naked eye

...and couldn't decide whether we were looking at a lagoon or polytunnels. If it hadn't been for past experience of seeing entire valley floors apparently under water, but actually being used for covered agriculture, we would have erred on the side of lagoon. Yesterday, the reality was only confirmed later when a different view gave us sight of angular edges and water apparently lying on a slope.

The only other point of note in what has been a quiet day (other than covering 9 miles on foot, which I suppose may be counted as an active day!) was that I implemented my second, more sophisticated, design of temporary fix for the shower room door handle. This uses a non-stretchy ribbon attached to two loops of elastic. The ribbon goes over the top of the door and the elastic attaches to both the door handles, forming an external spring, to do the job of the broken internal one. It's a much more effective solution, giving us an operational handle that will keep the door closed both when living and when travelling.

Friday 28 February - La Azohía

Where's Bertie? He's still enjoying a close view of the sea at La Azohía.
Weather: Poor air clarity today, but still cloudless and warm.

To the southeast side of the bay at La Azohía are these hills:

We walked across them today, on a route that could loosely be described as a figure of eight, like this:

Here's the top photo again, annotated (although I'm not sure in a meaningful manner!) with our route, as far as it can be seen from this side, and as far as it's possible for me to mark it accurately by poking a pointer at the screen of my phone:

We followed something akin to the orange dashes up to the ridge, then we disappeared behind the summit to the left of that point. Following the GR92 we went behind and past that hill, reapproaching it along the ridge from the other direction. We then followed the ridge the whole way along to the tower on the headland.

Here are a few snaps of the outing:

We had elevenses on the highest summit we visited (1200' ish?). That bun was bigger than my head!

From the summit with the masts we opted to shun both the GR and PR routes and instead follow the 'path' that runs along the ridge. It was definitely interesting going that way and at times scrambly, technical and/or like standing on plates of ballbearings. It's a wonder that we both managed to stay on our feet the whole time, although there were a few close calls and arm waving moments.

We resisted popping into the restaurant for another Menu del Dia on our way back to Bertie, but did nip into the Spar shop* adjacent to the parking area as ice cream seemed like a suitable end to our outing.

Mick has been campaigning for a swim in the sea since we arrived, so this afternoon we donned our swimmers and walked the 40m to the sea. There Mick did exactly as he always does when faced with cold water: he tippy-toed a few steps in and declared that there was no way he could swim in that. I did as I always do: I disengaged my brain and swam. It wasn't a bad temperature - no gasping or shivering. I did eventually manage to cajole Mick into getting wet, however, even 50m off-shore the water was still barely more than knee deep, so not ideal for swimming.

Forgot to post this photo yesterday. It's taken from Bertie's back bumper. This only shows a section of the area of wasteland that has become a temporary home for a veritable international gathering of motorhomers. We've found three other (much smaller) areas in La Azohía that are also being used for the purpose.

(*I often wonder what the residents of places such as this (although there aren't many around at this time of year; most properties appear to be second homes locked up for winter) make of the motorhomers who flock here and set up temporary encampments on every spare bit of land. However, I feel sure the businesses don't mind, as without a doubt the Spar shop (which only opens between 9am and 2pm each day) and the bars and restaurants are benefitting significantly from all of the visitors.)

Thursday 27 February - La Azohía

Where's Bertie? He's still sitting just across the road from the beach at La Azohía.
Weather: Another glorious warm day.

The sun had just popped up over the hills, quickly warming the day from its overnight temperature of 12 degrees, as we stepped out of the door for a run along the coast. My leg was painfree, but I kept the distance short for fear that overdoing it could may cause a relapse tomorrow.

Looking west along the bay in the morning light.

Pre-run selfie. Unusually, we stayed together for the duration today.

A bit of research came next in my day, as I looked at the walking options nearby. One of the nice things about La Azohía is that the hills come right down to the sea (often you have the choice of flat promenades by the coast or hills if you go inland, but not both in one place), and it turns out that there's not a shortage of paths through those hills. I downloaded three routes and proposed that we would do the shortest of them this afternoon. Mick suggested that wouldn't be compatible with having a Menu del Dia for our lunch and I had to agree; walking was thus deferred until tomorrow.

I also gave a bit of thought to where we're going to head from here. I reached no conclusions and it's a subject we returned to late this afternoon. The main problem is a conflict of wants: we'd like to be inland, in the hills, but we'd also like the ease of running routes and warmer, more settled climate of the coast. We went round in circles looking at options and trying to make a decision, but I think we got there in the end. Although we do, of course, have a good track record of making such a decision then to go completely against it!

In between those two planning sessions came another few hours of work for Mick, and a huge lunch:

Four courses this time (five if, per the menu, you count coffee as a course). A ridiculous amount of food, but we battled through it.

We were nearly back at Bertie after lunch when I realised that our bag was still at the restaurant. Without panic (it was highly unlikely in a location such as this that anyone would have walked off with it, and if they had they would have been sorely disappointed by its contents) we doubled back on ourselves to retrieve it and in the process learnt the Spanish word for 'backpack'.

Talking of learning Spanish, our progress with the language has improved since we started using the Duolingo App a couple of weeks ago (previously we were doing - and struggling hard with - an audio course), but we are both still finding it a harder language to learn than German (we've been trying to learn German in the summer and Spanish in the winter, per our tours of the last three years).

Tuesday and Wednesday 25-26 February - N of Mazarrón and Azohia

Where's Bertie? He's sitting on a wasteland sort of a parking area two throws of a stone away from the sea, at Azohia (37.56341, -1.17421). Yesterday he spent a second night at the petrol station just north of Mazarrón.
Weather: A few whispy bits of cloud around, but sunny and warm (back into the low twenties).

Who in their right mind would choose to spend two whole days sitting at a petrol station adjacent to a motorway? Us, that's who!

You may be thinking that we clearly weren't in our right minds, but it became apparent yesterday morning that Mick needed another 24 hours of electricity for his laptop. I looked at options for campsites, as they would provide nicer surroundings for me to wander whilst Mick worked, but on further analysis we decided that it just wasn't worth driving out of our way to spend €32 for two nights at a campsite when we could just put up with another 24 hours where we were for €5.35. Moreover, I was still trying hard to rest my poorly leg, and the limited exploration or walking options at the petrol station were good for that purpose (even if I was climbing the walls by late afternoon!).

It turned out that the surroundings weren't so bad. I strolled out a couple of miles yesterday morning and once I'd got past the petrol stations and off the service road, I found myself in pleasant (surprisingly green) wild-meadow-ish land with hills ahead:

Looking at the map later, I discovered there was a Via Verde (green route cycle way - usually ex-railway lines) a mile away in the other direction. That's where I headed for a circuit this morning* whilst Mick pored over his laptop some more. The good news is that today I could walk without pain in my leg and a few test steps at a jog were promising too.

By the time Mick had declared he'd had enough at staring at his document, and I'd reviewed what he'd done, it was past time for lunch. Once we'd lunched it had reached that hour when we start thinking we may as well stay put, and in most locations that's what we would have done. However, three consecutive nights at a petrol station seemed excessive, so off we pootled a few kilometres up the road to Camposol.

When we set out on this trip, Camposol was the only place that was firmly on the agenda to visit. Everything else was to be made up as we went along, but our declared objective/turning-back-north-point**, was Camposol. The reason for this was because Mick has long been on the mailing list of a local estate agency, and has for the last couple of years regularly shown me properties we could buy. In reality, we're pretty convinced that if we were to want to spend a few months each winter at a fixed location in Spain, it would make more sense to rent than to buy, but even so, given his interest in the place we decided we would visit, spend a week in the area and see how we liked it.

We spent less than an hour there and probably decided in the first five minutes that it was a resounding 'no' even from a rental point of view. There are many reasons we like Spain and not a single one of them was exhibited in Camposol.

Where to go next? We've had two separate recommendations for Azohia in the last week, so it seemed as good a place to come as any. As we set off coast-wards, I pondered to Mick that it would be funny if we got there to find we'd been before, as we are now (temporarily!) on a bit of coast we travelled in 2016. As we drove through Isla Plana, just 3.5km from our destination, I clearly remembered having been there before (on 24 January 2016 - click here for the relevant blog post), but it turns out that on that occasion we passed within a kilometre or so of Azohia, but didn't visit.

The view from in front of Bertie's bumper. Taken at an angle because straight ahead it's just sea.

Having nestled Bertie into a space in the front row of this large patch of wasteland that's been comprehensively taken over by motorhomes, we set out at once for a stroll along the seafront and had not gone far when a ringing of bicycle bells behind us was augmented by shouts in English. It was Steve and Steve, who we first met in Simat three weeks ago, then in Archena last week. Once again, of all the places and directions we could have gone in the meantime, it's some coincidence to see each other again.

Looking back towards Bertie

We didn't make it all the way to the end of the bay today. Time had run away with us, so we returned to Bertie to squeeze in a crossword (a stinker today) before Mick donned the pinny to cook tea for me.

Conrad: there may have only been PRs around Ricote, but there's a GR runs through Azohia!


^{(*After a poor night's sleep. Having successfully played 'hunt and kill the mosquito' before lights-out, we hoped it was a lone intruder. Alas, no. At around 1.30am, after multiple disturbances of Mick turning the light on to look for the little bastard (they always seem to prefer Mick to me; he's sporting five bites at the moment), I got up and deployed the makeshift mosquito net. Really must make a proper one large enough to do its duty properly without draping over either of us. The net may be back in use tonight as we're pretty sure (unless it left whilst the door was open today) that we have at least one more.
**Yes, we are now further south...)}