In 2014 we swapped a working life for a travelling one. Since then we have travelled in Europe by motorhome for around five months each year. This is our story.
This is probably the last post we will manage before we fly home on Friday. Gill and I have stopped having sensible conversations completely and now simply wander around repeating the phrase "'Blimey, it's the 3rd. December,,,we can't do this in Buxton," So here you have it, a brief rundown of all our recent s'blimey moments...
Eating outside under cloudless skies
Having freshly squeezed orange juice every day
Scooting about on the electric bikes in our shorts.....
Riding through eucalyptus forests
Wave watching
Swimming in the sea
all wrapped-up against the chill....
"'Blimey, it's the 3rd. December,,,we can't do this in Buxton....," December in the Peak District, how the hell are we going to cope? Oh! We almost forgot - we can't do this either i The daily cortado...
And finally, a word of thanks: To our selfless benefactors in Darlington (Teachers Pension Fund) - we 're ever so appreciative! It's not really possible or appropriate to give a big hug to 3.5 tons of metal, but if we could, we would "THANK YOU MAISY!!!" Pete and Gill yell in unison
Christmas is coming. Camping LoMonte's notice board announced the competition for the best decorated parcelos. Though judgement day is still three weeks hence, the keener long term campers from the Bundersrepublik were taking no chances. Overnight the gnomes, chintzy figurines of kissing children, garish ceramic frogs, gonks, statuettes of cute kittens and all the usual other crap designed to make Herren and Damen's pitch a heimat in the Spanish sun disappeared. Instead pots of poinsettias, fairy lights, plastic Santas, snowmen, sleighs, anything vaguely Christmassy popped-up in its place. Most of the stuff must have been lovingly transported from Dusseldorf and Regensburg in anticipation of this very moment. By the time the competition reaches its heady crescendo we will be long gone. For what it's worth our money is on the man four pitches down whose caravan awning fairy lights emanated a complex pattern of flashes, swirls and whooshes capable of communicating with alien life forms on the other side of the galaxy. Though I have to say his neighbour's ensemble of matching Santas, roped together and ascending the north face of the Hymer could make the final outcome too close to call.
Festive fever has spread beyond the confines of the campsite. Two days ago, the Zenia mall had erected an excuse for a Christmas tree and there was a bit of tinsel draped across the shop mannequins here and there. Mostly though they were making evermore excited tannoy announcements about Black Fridaybargains.
The mega retail moment having now passed without the breakdown in social order reported in the UK, attention can be fully focused on Christmas. Visiting to the Alcampo hypermarket today, a large tableau of Christmassy penguins greeted us as we entered the store. Though I say 'tableau' the term does not really do justice to the vivacity of the animatronic figures. They gave a spirited rendition of 'Jingle Bell Rock'; well, at least as spirited as you might expect from a three foot plastic penguin. Gill was on hand to record this remarkable moment.
It is difficult to take all this seasonal stuff seriously. As the penguins sang perkily about''flying through the frosty air,' it was 24 degrees outside, sunny with palm trees wafting their fronds in the gentle breeze. .Later in the afternoon, having parked up at Camping Marjal at Guadamar del Segura. we took the bikes for a bit of a spin through the nearby eco-park.
A new imperative - post-lunch meditation
The protected dunes and coastal forest east of the campsite
Raised wooden causeways protect the dunes (good idea!)
it means it's easy to cycle to the more remote parts of the beach (and it prorects the dunes)
We cycled along the raised wooden causeways snake through a forest of eucalyptus, pine and date palms. I'm not sure we were meant to, but the place was deserted, so who cares? The paths led to an empty beach with a view over the bay to the high mountains beyond Alicante. I stopped at the top of a dune to take in the view. A slim. tanned young man wandered out of the dunes and down towards the beach. He was wearing nothing whatsoever. ,Platje Els Tossals adjacent to the area of protected coastline is designated 'nudista'..Really,under such circumstances you can't really take 'In the Bleak Mid-winter' seriously at all.
The sprawl of mass tourism stretches north from Cartagena for 150 km or more, taking in the long strip of land on the seaward side of the lagoon-like Mar Menor, onwards past Benidorm, Xavia and the coast to the north of Valencia. We just have to accept that between now and next Friday, when we fly back to the UK, we will be camped in regimented sites designed to meet the needs of the long stay retirees.
On the way we called in at the shopping mall at La Zenia, which is one of southern Spain's biggest. It's a cross between Cité Europe and a McArthur Glen outlet mall like Cheshire Oaks. Having spent most of the last two months living cheaply and shopping at Lidl or small local supermarkets to be faced with full-on retail therapy on BlackFriday(yes it's reached Spain too!) was somewhat overwhelming. The original idea was to buy some small Xmas presents, but once you had factored-in that we can't take liquids, anything sharp, bulky or heavy in our carry-on bags, then we seemed stuck for what to buy. Clothes were a possibility, but since the shops were the usual suspects - H&M, Zara, Mango... then we might as well wait till we get back home.
Christmas tree - Spanish style
Couches provided for those in (retail) therapy.
Black Friday, the Hispanic version
Instead I bought myself a couple of swimming related items from Decathlon, a pair of swimming shorts which will dry quicker than the cotton 'beach shorts' I have at the moment. There was a good deal on Tri-suits - the lightweight wetsuits used in triathlon which enable you to swim in water down to 16 degrees. Justifying the purchase as an early Xmas present I bought one. Wearing it, I do resemble a giant tadpole, but it will extend where and when I can swim, and at the age of 59 I'm passed caring if I look ridiculous - being 59 is ridiculous in itself.
Next we headed to the big Alcampo hypermarket - the same chain as Auchan in France, As well as food shopping we bought an electric orange juicer and a 3 kg. bag of oranges. We have been coveting one of these ever since we spotted German motorhomes with large string bags of oranges hung from the awning. Freshly squeezed orange juice at breakfast, that seems another 'little pleasure' we can add to our idyllic existence, a foil to 'beer o'clock' at five.
We were going to have lunch at the mall, but by the time we had finished at the hypermarket we both felt tired, I still think we are recovering from the virus we've been suffering from. So we headed straight to the campsite, parked up, stuck in some laundry in, then had lunch in the van.
That was yesterday. Today jt's chilly and pouring with rain. It looks set-in for the day. This is the first really rainy day we've had for weeks. Practice for next Friday I suppose
Puntas de Calegre is as far south as we're going to get on this leg of the trip. By my reckoning we've driven about 2410 miles so far. As we headed north up the A7 autopista I think both of us were feeling a bit down. In terms of our inner compasses, south is always our happy direction. Unlike Python's infamous deceased parrot, you would never find either me or Gill 'pining for the fjords'.
We have decided to use the aire at Cartagena. It's a while since we've visited a city, and since we have a soft spot for Mediterranean ports, then Cartegena would be one more ticked off. The place has a venerable history, an interesting architectural heritage, and quite by chance when we arrived was in the midst of Cathagineses y Romanos, an annual festival involving a series of re-enactments of battles between the Romans and Carthaginians.
As this festival indicates, Cathagena is a Punic city, founded as Novo Cathago in 223 BC. by Hannibal. Subsequently it was ruled by the Romans, Moors and then taken by Christian forces in 1242. More recently, it was the last Spanish city to capitulate to Franco's army and suffered considerable damage during the civil war. No wonder it has been fought over, Cartagena possess one of the finest natural deep water harbours in the Western Mediterranean, and remains to this day an important naval base.
A statue of Hannibal who founded 'New Carthage' in 223BC. stands near the castle
The modern arena with the natural deep water harbour and the naval base in the background
With all of this history and the development of industry in the area, unsurprisingly the city is characterful rather than beautiful. We parked about four miles from its centre, near Dolores, and caught the bus to the centre - €1.40 each - great value. The outskirts are run-down, and you can see that since the demise of manufacturing in the 1980s, like in many industrial cities, times have been hard. Nevertheless it is an interesting place with significant archaeological remains from the roman period, a Baroque city hall and streets in the old centre brimming with modernista buildings, some superbly renovated, but many in a near ruinous state.
The remains of the Roman theatre.
one of many modernista style doorways
As part of the celebrations most of the old quarter had been given over to a medieval market. It was very similar to the one we saw back in February in Palma di Mallorca - lots of pop-up food places, stalls selling specialist cheeses and sausages, art-crafty stalls, wandering minstrels and dancers - you get the picture!
Afterwards we climbed the hill to the castle, chatted to some elderly but feisty American tourists escaped from the big cruise ship that was dominating the harbour. By this time the forecast rain duly arrived. We wandered about until we found a cafe and had toasts and patatas bravas, then moved on for coffee in a nice old place dating from 1905. We were glad to sit down, not only because of the rain, but also we've developed some kind of bug over the past week - upset tummy, mild fluey symptoms and low energy levels. We decided to call it a day, caught the no. 7 back to Dolores, and returned to the van well before evening.
The American tourists' huge cruise ship half filled the harbour.
Patates Bravas - yum...
toasts - but not your average Welsh rarebit....yum!
and afterwards, coffees in a nearby Modernista cafe
The 'camper stop' here is excellent, and much more to our taste than the 'long-stay' sites in the area. The young woman managing the place is wonderfully friendly, happy just to chat. We also had a long conversation with a couple from Yorkshire who have been motoring through Spain and Portugal every winter for the past seven years. They gave us some useful leaflets for sites we might use in February. The other great thing about this aire is the reliable FREE Wifi. I managed to update the blog completely, including embedding a few video clips. It does annoy me when other sites charge up to €3 per day for a Wifi link, which subsequently proves to be intermittent, slow and pathetically weak.
With rain showers forecast fortomorrowwe will move north again. We will have to use the sites on the coast even if their atmosphere is not to our liking. We need the laundry facilities and a place to print out Ryan Air boarding cards. There is quite a bit of sorting out to do to get the van into a state where it can be left for two months. We 've checked the forecast for next Friday, there is no doubt winter is arriving, the temperature in Alicante is set to be 17 degrees during the day, just a week ago that was the average nighttime temperature. What is really a downer, however, is the forecast for Buxton, only 4 degrees maximum, dropping to zero. Now you understand why south for us is not simply a point on the compass, but a constant aspiration, a place of treasured memories - a happy state of mind.
The last three campsites all full of long stay over-wintering retirees had really begun to get both of us down. Really we did not set out on our adventure to end up railing about our fellow travellers. The simple fact is that we set out to spend a few months escaping from the trappings of middle class existence, whereas most of the others appeared equally determined lug them south for the winter. The final straw for Gill came while I went for a swim. She sat reading on the terrace only to be entertained by the campsite tea-time karaoke. I understand the low point was 'O Danny Boy'....
By 10:30 next day we had packed up and were heading one stop down the AP7 to an aire at Puntas de Calnegre, or to be exact two aires. It took us through Spain's arid semi-desert landscape of bare mountains and dusty valleys carpeted with acres of plastic greenhouses. As we neared the coast these were interspersed with green fields of lettuce, an odd sight in a semi-desert!
We pulled into Calnegre Aire 1, described as the more charming of the three in the area. It's true it had ornamental trees and well defined pitches, but the promised electricity was defunct, 'the friendly Spanish owners' nowhere to be seen, and the only other people around were a couple of German bikers with their van and big trailer; they were off-hand to the point of rudeness, but we thought - c'est la vie, it's just for one night.
Calnegre is remote, one of the few undeveloped areas on Spain's Costa Calida
A wild, arid tract of country punctuated by the odd patch of green - lettuces grown on an industrial scale using irrigation piped-in from afar.
A pleasant enough aire - but the electrical hook-ups did not work and the fellow campers seemed distinctly frosty.
So we off-loaded the bikes and headed for the beach. The village of Calnegre was just a few single storey fisherman's houses, a couple of beach bars, a modernist concrete villa streaked with rust and a small three storey apartment block. The beach was stony and somewhat litter strewn, and the view, stunning. We'd brought the beach chairs. Gill scrunched to a halt at a small play park next to the beach.
"Shall we stop here?" she enquired.
I glanced around, "Let's see what's up the road." I had packed my swimming stuff and hoped to find a less weedy beach. We had not even pedalled half a kilometre when we came across the other aire which had been described in the book as 'occupying 'a scrap of land prime for development adjacent to the sea'' but failed to mention the magnificent view of mountains and coast stretching west all the way to Cartagena. We pedalled in for a closer look. Ten or so other vans were spread across the level stony ground. The emptying point was brand new, it looked great.
Gill observed, "Shame we did not find here first." Then circling around passed me again, "Should we move the van?"
Seized by an inexplicable desire to emulate David Brent, I replied, "It's a no brainer."
So we cycled back to the first place, packed-up, and re-parked next to the Med. The guy beside us travelling alone in a big American style RV , his permanent home, came up for a chat, we swapped experiences, agreed how lucky we were. A nice simple, friendly conversation.
As for the place itself, there is very little here, it exudes the beauty of the overlooked, the half forgotten, the dilapidated. - an empty sea of the deepest blue next to an empty road; grey misty mountains beyond a beige stony desert. But colourful too - bougainvillea draped the gables of the village houses, some painted brightly, some gleaming white, others crumbling, their painted facades faded and peeling. I could understand how some people might find it desolate and melancholy, to us though it seemed peaceful and sublime.
In comparison, the social rituals, territorial display, conspicuous consumption and petty games of status we had observed on campsites over the last week all seemed ridiculous. So there you have it, November 26th 2014, the day Pete and Gill drove 22 miles from the ridiculous to the sublime. You don't believe us? Look at the pictures!
It's better here...
parked-up beside the sea
with an empty coastline stretching as far as you can see
big grins all round
the village beach bar
a few small fishing boats
the bar from the front
wrought iron decorations
and tiles around the door
The main street (only street) reminded me of the remoter parts of southern Crete.
late afternoon light
a grazing herd of motorhomes
even an old bit of sunbleached rope conspired to be picturesque
