The Rambla

This dusty track leads to our best walk directly from the campsite. It’s not a group walk so Jane and I often head there on our own. It goes into a rambla, a dry river bed that can turn into a raging torrent after heavy rain. No chance of that today though.

It’s also a Natural Park with a few dwellings so it also serves as a primitive access road shared with the walkers and cyclists. We noted a new sign that specifies a speed restriction for walkers only: no rambling at over 30kph (19mph). 

The hills rise on either side of the rambla. That dark shape Jane’s looking at is a cave: the cave of the horseman. Can’t say how the horseman managed to ride up the side of a near-vertical hill to his cave, but they were a different breed in the old days. Or maybe the horse was really a mule. 

The scenery isn’t all rocks and cliffs, now we’re passing through bamboo beds where the ground hangs on to the occasional rain for longer.

We come to an old farmhouse that is designated as a picnic area. It’s not much used except at holiday time; at Easter when we walked there must have been several hundred people in the vicinity.

Perhaps the nicest viewpoint is coming round the corner onto this straight with the White Cliffs in the background. These are the cliffs we climbed to the top of on our last walk with the group, the previous blog, so the valley we were looking down on was this rambla. 

The rambla is also a haven for birds and other wildlife. Some years there are bee-eaters nesting and you often see wild boar rootings but these are rarely spotted. It’s just a beautiful, peaceful place to be.