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A view of Benidorm in the distance with Calpe in the foreground |
Leaving Moraira, we decided to make a leisurely 'dash' down the coast, dropping family off at the airport in Alicante, our first stop for the night was previously visited La Marina, as its only 30 minutes from the airport and has a couple of beach bars close by. From there we went to Elche to a large motor home accessory shop, as we had a problem with the fridge, hoping that they could fix it, problem with fridge not resolved but journey continues, driving inland passing Murcia, Lorca and stopping for lunch is a small town called Librilla, thinking there was a lake to stopby, but the river feeding it had been damned up mainly years ago. After a long drive we stopped at a lovely stop on the beach just outside Aquiilas for the night. In the morning we drove onto Villaricos to stay with Jan and Ian for one night and the following day arrived at Almerimar, so now we are back on track.
Moving on, we passed through Adra, Motril and dropped down into Salobrena, initially, we thought to be a typically Spanish tourist town, with a long sweeping promenade, however once we found the wild camping spot and had time to explore, we found an Moorish castle in the old town up on top of the out crop of rock and next door, the tiny village of La Caleta which houses the last sugar factory in Europe.
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Salobrena town, nicer place than it looks - sugar factory in foreground |
Dashed through the Costa del Sol, passing around Malaga, through Benalmadeba, Fuengirola and Marbella, stopping in a coastal town called San Pedro, for a couple of nights over the weekend. San Pedro is only a couple of km's from Puerto Banus, so we decided to walk down and see how the other half live.
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"Time to dump the motor home - I've got my sights on something better"!! |
Gibraltar - well nearly!!
We decided to move onto Gibraltar for a couple of days, mainly to do abit of duty free shopping. However when we arrived at what is commonly known as the "sandpit" a very popular and apparently reliable wild camping stop, the police were moving all the vans off, so we made a hasty retreat and change of plan (several days later we discovered that there had been a bomb scare and all the vans could return at 9pm). We decided to carry on through Algeciras and onto our next stop Tarifa.
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The only shot of Gibraltar we got due to the fast exit required |
Tarifa
We arrived in Tarifa, early evening and parked in the town for coffee and cake, before finding somewhere to stop for the night. Tarifa is the most southerly point of Spain and only 14 km from the coast of Africa, it is apparently one of the windiest place in Europe and therefore very popular for windsurfing and kite surfing. We headed northwest to Tarifa Beach and settle there for the night amongst the surfer dudes. The following day we had planned to go into town and look round the surfer shops for some t-shirts for Simon, then head back to the beach and watch the display of surfers, however the police where knocking on van doors at 7 in the morning moving people on, so off we went again. We decided it was time to check into a campsite and freshen up, moving up the coast, we passed fields and fields of wind turbines and called into Zahara de Los Tunes for breakfast, a pretty fishing village with some small hotels and pensions and drove through the busy town of Barbate.
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Some of Spain's wind farms- they are everywhere, along this coast |
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Me taking the dog for a shit - "we don't have a dog silly" |
Zahora (Caños de Meca)
We stopped at campsite in Zahora, after parking up we walked to the lighthouse at Cape Trafalgar, off the south west coast, where the famous battle of Trafalgar was fought on the 21st Oct 1805. British Royal Navy’s fleet of 22 warships went up against the French & Spanish combined fleet of 33 warships, the Spanish losing 22 ships with no British loses. We chilled on the windy beach and pondered what had happened all those years ago. We made our way back to the town via the long sandy beach (like one of those you see in adverts) All the beaches along this coastline are stunning, beautiful soft white sand that stretches for miles and miles. Jo forgot her sun hat and had to improvise!
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| Just like a chocolate flake advert |
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| nice pose |
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Lighthouse at Cape Trafalgar |
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Jo looking like a member of the Spanish Inquisition |
La Palmar
The following day we walked to La Palmer and had lunch in the “cervezeria” which looked like the one all the surfers frequented.
Si contemplating his next meal - "I think I'll now have the left hand side off the menu" |
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| Surf dude central |
Continuing up the coast to Cadiz, we passed through La Barrosa, a tourist resort with 5 golf courses. Stayed for lunch in the harbour area of Sancti Petri, a small spit of land a beautiful place to camp, but it was a little early to set up camp so we moved on, Jo photographed a statue of a man before heading for El Puerta De Santa Maria
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| It's nearly down to his knee, nice of the sculptur to add an extra inch |
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