Moho swarm

With our Eurotunnel crossing booked for two weeks hence and Google maps reminding us we are 1600 miles from home, the time had come to head north. Our aim was to spend three days in Isla Plana, a small resort between Mazarron and Cartegena. We had laundry and housekeeping to do, all of that is easier in the sunny south, so we planned to spend three nights in Les Madrilles campsite. As long stay coastal sites go it is slightly less ghastly than most and has the added advantage of a salt water pool heated to 24°.

We should have phoned ahead. There were no places available and none due to be vacated in the coming days. We reverted to plan B and headed for a remote area autocaravanas next to the Puntas de Calnegre, about 20 kilometres to the south. It too was busy, with over 50 vans drawn up on the rough ground to the south of the village.

In the five years since we started travelling in winter the motorhome population on the Spanish Mediterranean coast has grown exponentially. This place had only just opened when we first found it in 2014, with about half a dozen vans parked up. The whole area felt slightly off the beaten track, wild and beautiful in a pleasingly ramshackle way.

When I wrote 'Headlands' it was the Puntas de Calnegre that inspired the triolet section:

The road becomes a stony track –
find solace in dilapidation,
wind-seared palms, a sun bleached shack.
The road becomes a stony track,
we reach a cove, then double back
through bleak garrigue and desolation.
The road becomes a stony track –
find solace in dilapidation.

It was a soulful place, but not anymore. Of course I'm on a sticky wicket complaining about a mass invasion of motorhomes from the north when we're part of the problem. Nonetheless, to find ourselves parked in serried rows like a retirement village on wheels is not why we travel. A warmer winter is what we crave, like everyone else, but not at any cost. There are more peaceful places, in Sicily, the Peloponnese, Crete and the Alentejo, maybe it is time to head back there.

The coast between Bolneovo and Aguillas does seem to be developing quickly. The Dutch guy employed to collect fees at the Puntas de Calnegre area autocaravanas mentioned that the owner was planning to install electrical hook-up and had bought the adjacent scrubland to expand the capacity to 150 vans. That's a demoralising prospect 

Not only is tourism developing. The Murcia region has a plasticulture based agro-industry like Almeria to the south, but it is mixed in with crops grown outdoors, particularly lettuces, salad leaves and brassicas. It's somewhat startling when you first encounter it, big squares of lurid green dotting the scrubby semi-desert. A large area between the Puntas de Calnegre and the main road was under development. It appears that this style of intensive farming requires perfectly flat fields to accommodate the irrigation system and hydroponics. So the pristine ground is first scraped and cleared of stones with a big earthmover, then ploughed and harrowed by tractor before the crops are planted. For someone who was moved to sing the praises of 'bleak garrigue' the sight of this unique landscape being transformed into a lettuce growing machine was truly dispiriting.

The overcrowded winter wonderland of Spain's Costas has definitely provided the low points on the trip. However the climate traps you here, the narrow coastal strip from Valencia south is usually the only place with almost guaranteed sunny skies. As storm Gloria showed, maybe 'guaranteed' is overstating the matter, the weather is never entirely predictable. Fortunately, this can work both ways, conditions can be unusually good as well as bad. For the next five days or so wall to wall blue and afternoon temperatures in the low twenties have been forecast for most of Iberia. We have decided to head for one of the handful of Acsi sites open all year in the middle of Spain. Kiko Park Rural is a big site spectacularly positioned above the Embalse de Contreras. It's in the middle of nowhere on the border of the Comunidad Valenciana and Castille la Mancha. The nearest place of any consequence is Utriel, about 35kms distant. We have been here before but the route to it around Murcia, then through the wine growing areas of Jumillia and Yecla is all new territory. There nothing like the prospect of an unfamiliar landscapes to raise the spirits.