Espuña Regional Park

Today we are walking in Espuña, a small range of wooded mountains with good footpaths an hour’s drive from the campsite. The radar dome on the cliffs in  the photo below is at the highest point, 5,200 feet above sea level. So our walk starts near the top; conveniently, a public road goes almost to the radar station and finishes at a car park.

They might be good paths, but they can be quite steep as this next gradient shows. It’s good for warming up though as the air is much cooler at this height than on the coast where we started out.

The views are worth the effort, especially as we look north to much higher mountains that are still snow-capped.

An odd feature of the mountain park is the large number of ice-houses dotted around, a few restored like the one in the photo underneath, but most in ruins. There were originally 25, serving the cities of Murcia and Cartagena that are fairly close by.

The ice-houses operated for three and a half centuries, until 80 years ago when refrigeration came. Snow was compacted to a depth of 7 metres, up to the level of the door, with the dome an empty air chamber. This kept the ice at the lowest temperature. The inside holds a large volume as can be seen from the photo.

We didn’t catch site of the mouflon herds this time, long horned sheep re-introduced into the park, or the wild boar which are quite plentiful. Right at the end, though, we did see a peculiar, snake-like, thin, moving line. What was it?

On closer inspection it turned out to be a nose-to-tail line of caterpillars, as the close-up photo reveals. It all looks very endearing, like a parade of tiny elephants. But there’s a definite sting in the tail!

These are pine processionary caterpillars whose young nest in pine trees in silky web pouches that damage and can kill the trees. Also, DO NOT TOUCH the caterpillars as they give off fine hairs that cause throat swelling  resulting in breathing difficulties, especially so for asthma or bronchial sufferers. It can be fatal to dogs. Advice is to call in pest control who wear contamination suits and burn the nests. So not so sweet after all- but this is one object of the walks, to see interesting and different things.

We did spot a fox later, outside the restaurant where we stopped for lunch, but it was gone before cameras could be uncased. Even the restaurant chef shot out to see it, not brandishing a meat cleaver, as you might expect, but with some food for it in his hand. Perhaps the meat cleaver was hidden in his apron.