To Spain and back Part Three

We left Isla Plana after just one night and head off down the AP7 towards a site east of Almeria in the Sierra del Cabo de Gata, this was to be the shortest leg of the journey so far only 137km and we were looking forward to a nice restful day.  The trip down to Cabo del Gata went without a hitch, arrived early afternoon to an almost empty newish site all of which was hardstanding made up of a thick layer of pebbles.  After setting up and having a bite to eat, we set off to explore the site and the surrounding vicinity.  The toilet blocks were immaculate, as you would expect from a new site nothing out of place, on our way back to the van we past the swimming pool and decided to get our swimming kit and have a swim and a lazy afternoon around the pool.  Arrived back at the van and the English guy a few pitches came over for a natter, after a while we said we were going for a swim, I wouldn’t both unless you like being eaten by mosquitoes.  Earlier maintenance had decided to cut the hedges around the pool and this had disturbed the mossies and now there were millions of them all over that area, we gave it a miss.

The restful night we were looking forward to was disturbed by our first experience of Spanish dogs who are left on weekend retreats as guard dogs by the owners, dogs being dogs if one starts to bark they all have to join in, and this continued on and off all night, we were very glad to be leaving the next day.

The next part of the journey took us around Almeria and with the road being right on the coast we thought the views would be good, wrong, around this part of Spain they use polythene a lot for farming.  Acres and acres of land covered with mucky ripped and torn polythene, not at all what we had expected.  Also just before Motril the map showed the road to be quite hilly with the little black arrows to show steep sections, as it turned out our fears were unfounded and we sailed through this section without a problem.

It was closer to Malaga that the problems started, the Spanish have built thousands of miles of new roads, and lots of them are bypassing Malaga.  Unfortunately our sat nav mapping wasn’t upto date enough to show all the new roads, and the road builders signage wasn’t always in place before they opened the road, and this is where we went disastrously wrong, missing the wooden sign for the new E15 bypass we carried on into Malaga to find ourselves caught up in the Friday afternoon panic to get home early. We needed the 357 road to Cartama, but not one sign post showed either road or town. Unable to stop anywhere we decided to head for the airport as we had been there many times before picking up hire cars from there.  We finally made it without actually hitting or being hit by anyone, and drove into the commercial area to properly consult the map, and reprogramme the sat nav, that done and a very welcome brew saw us off again into the thick of the rush hour traffic, signs for Cartama the 357 or indeed Coin were completely absent, then Barbara caught sight of a sign for Alhaurin el Grande this town was within 5 kilometres of our campsite at Finca dela Piedra near the village of Villa Franco del Guadalhorce. With enlighten expectations we turn the outfit towards Alhaurin the sat nav was completely useless not recognising any of the roads we were using and constantly telling us to turn round, eventually we arrived at a roundabout with a sign post for Villa Franco.  Turning up the road towards the village Barbara insisted that I stop and telephone the camp site for assistance, to save an argument I did as told and spoke to Jeff trying to describe where we were.  “Can you see a large tractor tyre stood on end on a block of concrete” asked Jeff  “Yes” I said “We are parked twenty yards before it” “The lane at the side of it leads to the camp site”.  We’d made it”.  Carefully negotiating the lane we made our way onto the site and a very warm welcome from Jeff and Irene.

Jeff took over and sited the van connected the electrics and water using his own water butt and connectors to give us constant water, he then connected the television to his satalite dish and finally gave me the code for the wifi, all for just 12€ a night, sorry the electricity was metred (the first months electricity charge was 24€) and the wifi was 20 € a month.  While he was siteing us, Irene showed us round the site toilet/shower block, washing machine and drying area and lastly the club house, yes club house, really it was just a lean to against their accommodation with chairs a table and a T.V.  But it was somewhere to meet in the evening for a chin wag and a glass of wine or beer and Irene most nights put on some nibbles crisps cheese and the like.  Within ten minutes we felt really at home the dramas of finding it a dim memory.