33*C in the shade!!

No complaints about the temperature today. Just a short drive from Guardamar to El Torres. It was a road worth travelling.
We passed salines where flamingoes were paddling and mini salt mountains sat by the roadside.

The temperature soared as the day continued. The brightness was exaggerated by the white rock and white stone terraces.

The sierras loomed large over the narrow coastal plain as a signpost for BENIDORM struck us between the eyes!! Had we made a huge mistake? Were we going to be parked on an alcohol fuelled campsite with line dancing Brits?

Then, between two headlands, nestled a small beach and a brand new campsite. Not a high rise to be seen. Phew!! 😅 But, we can’t be this close to the notorious,and much maligned town, and not let curiosity and a couple of pinicoladas get the better of us. So tomorrow we are off on a train to see the sights ....... Could this be one to tick off our bucket list?

But for the rest of today, we’ll enjoy tranquility.

Any sink in a storm !!

Exciting boule tournament tonight but the loser had to find a way to wash away the dust of defeat!!

Hope Stoke have better luck than Sue. ‘Night All

Catch up

We are delighted to hear that you have our temperatures and long may they last.
It seems to be Jose in Portugal who is having the wet stuff at the moment.
So where are we ?
Having had a wonderful send off from our new, but brief friendships in Bolnuevo, with promises of returning, same time, same place, next year, and more wine and tortillas, we headed off inland in search of new views. Beautiful scenery, all eroded by wind and water, with isolated farms growing fruit, potatoes and cabbages.

La Manga was our destination. What a disappointment. Grey and cold. One night and just 74 kilometres,
brought us to Guardalmar. We are north of the resort, on the edge of a National Park. It is a large commercial site but we like to have variety on our travels. and the pitch is enormous.

This a fraction of the pool area and both bikes and especially the scooters, are proving of interest. We scoot for a shower or a loaf of bread. It’s fun

This morning we went off to explore the ecology on our bikes.

Those boardwalks are cycle tracks

Along a breakwater we found fishermen galore and the feral cats that they look after. 

Tomorrow we are off to discover the more sophisticated side of the town and indulge in tapas and a beer!!

A day in the life ........

The site slowly comes to life. Church bells, birds and the clatter of last night’s wine bottles being
dumped into the recycle bin, brings the tin-tenters to the dawn of a new day.
No need to rush to the showers because there are plenty of them to go round and the hot water never runs out!!
What to do with our day?
Well there is the on going boules tournament.

Just look at the location of the court!
Then the highly technical scoring system.

A bite of lunch then off to explore.

After a coffee at a beach bar, it’s back home for a read and a snooze before making preparations for tonight’s barbecue.

As the sun begins to slowly sink behind the mountains and the wine slowly sinks into our systems, there are loud multi- lingual conversations going on all around us as we and our neighbours suddenly become the best of friends. Fernando tells us about his home close to the Portuguese border, Ellen and Rudi from the Netherlands tell of their motorhoming adventures in the Morocco and Louis the French guy opposite, reminds us to wear our crash helmets when we go out. 

Bolnuevo ...... we like it here.

There has been somewhat of an improvement in the weather. The sun has dared to shine and spirits have been uplifted without the need for alcohol, although the many rubbish bins around the site have plenty of recyclable glass and tin each morning so some of these happy campers are imbibing plenty. I’m sat outside the bar benefiting from the free WiFi on offer and thought that you might enjoy a snapshot of Bolnuevo. It is a very floriferous site with colour everywhere you look, from the roundabout as you enter the site,

to the toilet and shower rooms

Locals bring their plants with

and some guests build their own gardens if they are  here for a while.

There are magnificent palm trees soaring  skywards

and tucked away in a corner, is a small library, where the owners have categorised all the hundreds of donated books by the language that they are written in. Germans and Netherlanders are by far the most prolific visitors here!!

The promenade is well over a kilometre long and wonderful for our bikes and scooters

There is a desert type landscape as a backdrop to the village

and a rocky coastline beyond.

We have lovely Dutch neighbours who have a dog called Yeti, Please note Tom and Mariejan!!

So Friday the 13th has not been a superstitious day for us, and we hope that
 all is ok with you too.

Costa del NO Sol !!

The picture says it all. Tucked up in bed, complete with dressing gown, in the middle of the afternoon.
Time to go hunting sun and warmth. This is one Costa that’s not living up to its name.
We have decided to slowly work our way along the coast. Just heard about motorhomers in the north around Zaragoza, who are stuck in snow. What crazy weather this year.
The skies were grey and bleak as we motored along the wonderful A7  autovia, with its many tunnels and viaducts ( that’s Spanish for a very high bridge ) Lots of encouraging words from Sue as my knees went to jelly and breathing was suspended until we got to the other side of each one!

Our lunch stop brought us to a halt by the beach at Calahonda.

If you look closely you can tell that those palm fronds are not swaying gently in the breeze. They were being turned inside out by a gale force wind, that would do credit to the BBC’s early morning fishing forecast for the Faroe Islands!!

Fed and watered, off we went.

And this is poly tunnel land..... as far as the eye can see in all directions, there are plastic greenhouses growing salad crops and fruit. Inland were the wind eroded rocks and irrigated crops.

And then we reached Mazaron and our campsite at Bolnuevo.

Still got the rough sea

Storms have hurled sand up to gates and cafes have failed to open.

But we have seen a clearer sky over the village

and even breakfast was more colourful than usual, with our own feathered vacuum to hoover up the baguette crumbs.

A rural ramble

Having been blown off the beach we set off exploring the local countryside on foot, but not without a hearty lunch in a local eatery. The glasses of wine were quite large!!

The lanes were narrow and the bamboo windbreaks very high but the hedgerows were full of wild flowers.

We found the biggest eucalyptus tree ever and to show you the enormity of this giant, Sue can just be seen stood close by.

There were fields of artichokes, never seen them growing close up before.

Also a dried up river bed and a cottage with fruit trees in the garden.

And that’s the last time we saw a blue sky.

The weather is dull and chilly so having checked our weather app, we are going to drive further along the coast, to chase the sunshine. 

We can always do an about turn if we want. It’s only half a tank of fuel.

We’re On The Road Again ........ Dee-Dee-Dee,Dee Dee Dee

Left Tarifa in glorious sunshine and took the beautiful, twisting, mountain road down to Algeciras, passing the port where the ferry took us on our Moroccan adventures in 2013 and 14. In fact we could see Tanger Med clearly across the Straits of Gibraltar.
Here in Spain, once you have sorted your Autovias from your Autopistas, so that you know that you aren’t paying expensive tolls, then the free motorway along the coast is very scenic. The A7 is exceptional as it by passes all the notorious, high rise tourist resorts, none of which we will name so as not to cause offence.
Wishing to spend time on the Costa del Sol but in the type of location that we prefer, we took an impulsive right hand turn just before Torre de Mar and look what we found. A small family run site called Camping Almayate. Not to be confused, if you are on Google Earth with the site further up the road with the same name, which is for naturists!! There are bits of us that haven’t seen the light of day in forty years.
Intrepids we may be, reckless we are not!
Here are a few pics from today.
The main road through the site has a great cement surface for scooting. Spot the sea at the end.

The view from our doorway

The landscape from the beach

The opulence of the Ladies shower room is wonderful

It’s not all porta potties in campervan land !!