Another Blog, at Last!

We left El Rocio on 10th April for Los Madriles, in the province of Murcia, where we have stayed for the last 4 years at around this time of the year. We broke the 400 mile journey with an overnight stop at Granada, and arrived at Los Madriles in the early afternoon of the following day. Setting up was delayed by bumping into numerous friends from previous visits, but eventually we were installed on a pitch with a nice sea view. Now it's April and there are plenty of pitches free as the over-winterers leave by the end of March before which time the site is totally full.

We arrived on a Monday and were booked into the Tuesday walk. We’ve done most of them before, but are all worth doing again, and the photo above from this first walk shows just how picturesque this area is.

Also a nice example of local scenery: the beach framed by the background mountains and featuring the shorewalkers, our companions from a birthday lunch, heartily enjoyed and celebrated- see below!

Last week a new walk was proposed, in the Espuna National Park- so I’m not repeating previous years’ blogs. Firstly it’s all up and up, but following a good waymarked trail through pines, scrub and rocks of which the photo is a good example.

But as we plodded upwards on the long ascent the crocodile of walkers became more and more spread out as some of the walkers tired. And it was hot. However, the walk leaders are quite fit and not wanting to slow down because we may be late for lunch. “Walk, don’t talk,” was the message passed back. Some disgruntled muttering about this. Walking, for most of us, is a social activity and chatting to other trekkers is part of it. Also, pausing to admire the scenery, maybe take a photo, or look at the flora & fauna. A comfort stop. A brief rest.

Anyway, we did eventually reach the crest, and the view was superb. (I took the photo while walking- didn’t slacken my pace, honest.) From here on it was downhill, so no fatigue issues, but a cracking pace was still being set in the “walk, don’t talk” style. It was nevertheless a lovely walk and perhaps illustrates the difficulty of coordinating a group of individuals with differing objectives and physical constraints.

After lunch we visited this dramatic gorge that ran for several hundred metres and was invisible on the approaches. You can judge the scale by Jane’s figure in the bottom left hand corner. The colours and shapes of the rocks were particularly outstanding due to algae and limestone accumulations.