La Saucedilla

La Saucedilla

By atrekinthesun   10:16   No comments:

Wednesday 13th May

Had a nice walk today starting at La Saucedilla between Villanueva del Trabuco and Archidona. We started at 9:30 as the weather has been getting hotter. It was not early enough for one of the walkers was bothered by the heat towards the finish of the walk, so if the temperatures stay the same as today we will have to start the walks at about 8am. She is fine now after cooling down. The walk went well starting gently until we arrived at a steep downhill part where we had to be careful descending but everyone got down safely.

Steep bit

We then arrived at the river crossing which wasnt too bad but we all had to take our boots off and wade across, the water was nice and cool and Scoobie loved it (she had been let off the lead today as there isn't much wildlife around on this walk). The walk then proceeded along a good track until we hit an uphill section which we had all done before but we still had to stop talking for a little while in order to get to the tree at the top where we always stop for a drink (of water that is).

It was already getting hot by then and it was only about 10:30. When we got started again all went well but Scoobie disappeared and we ended up at a bar in Archidona for a coffee, Scoobie had gone back to the girls at the back of the group and then all eventually arrived at the bar after about 2 hours of walking. By the time we started the return journey it was getting really hot and we had about an hours walking left to do, and during the last uphill section we were all feeling the heat. Apart from that all was fine and we got back to the cars OK.

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Wednesday Walk 13th May 2015

Wednesday Walk 13th May 2015

By atrekinthesun   23:51   No comments:

Meet at La Saucedilla which is just off the A92M at junction 11 onto A-7202 Villanueva del Trabuco to Archidona road just past the prison at 9:30 for a pleasant walk down into the Arroyo de Marin valley and then up to Archidona for refreshments then back into the Valley via a different route back to La Saucedilla. This walk involves crossing a small river and 2 steep downhill bits and one steep uphill. Bring a small towel to dry your feet after the river crossing and walking poles would be useful too. The walk is about 11k in total and dog friendly although there is a little bit of road walking.

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Llano del Hondonero. Sierra de Camarolos

Llano del Hondonero. Sierra de Camarolos

By atrekinthesun   09:41   No comments:

Nice clouds

Today we drove from Villanueva del Rosario up to Llano del Hondonero in the Sierra de Camarolos. Parked up and walked up the track past the massive buttress of El Corral which contains the stunning cave of Chilam Balam.

El Corral buttres

Beautiful to look at but climbing was not for us today, we stuck to walking which was hard enough as we climbed over 500 metres during the walk climbing up to almost 1300 metres. We took our time as it was getting hot even at 10:15 start. I had described the walk as very undulating but was not very popular with most of the people on the walk as they thought it was just uphill.

view on the way up

Scoobie was good as we kept her on the lead, otherwise she would have disappeared as there were some cattle which are very rare in this part of Spain.

approaching our high point

There were lots of other animal scents, we
spotted a couple of Ibex on the horizon which we managed to get on camera as they were watching us closely. On the way down one of the group decided to do some exploration by himself, so went off to see the view from one of the ridges he was gone about 15 minutes and then we heard him shout from one of the hills that we were passing, he had gone up to the ridge and found another route back but joined up with us on the way down. He had done some scrambling and had been bitten by a snake as he pulled himself up on a rock,

but luckily the snakes in Spain are not poisonous (so they say). Nothing else happened on the way down apart from a couple of people slipping over on the steep descent. A nice 3 hour walk was enjoyed by all I think.

On top at last

Ibex posing nicely for us

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The cave and more

The cave and more

By atrekinthesun   22:46   No comments:

Did a nice walk today from the camp site in Villanueva del Trabuco up to the cave called Toma y Bebe in the Sierra de Jobo hills. Then carried on along tracks and through olive groves and a quarry until we got back into the village of Trabuco to finish. It was quite hot and we were pleased to finish at about 2pm after 3 hours 45 minutes of walking. When we arrived at the camp site there was a large group of people who looked like walkers getting ready to start a walk and before we had got our boots on they did start walking in the same direction that we had planned to go.

Behind a huge group of walkers

The group was really big and we soon managed to catch them up but it was in a place where the track was narrow so we were stuck behind them for a bit. Eventually the track opened up and we were able to get past them,our Spanish friend Javier who we were walking with said that they were not from Malaga or Granada as their accents were not right he thought that they were from Almeria. Soon after we passed them they stopped for breakfast and we did not see them again. We had originally planned to just go to the cave and back but when we got there we decided to carry on towards Villanueva del Rosario through the Dehesa de Hondonero.

Following the track to Rosario we decided to turn off onto a track that we had not been on before which would take us towards Trabuco.

This eventually ran out so we carried on through olive groves and a small forest until we found the track again and ended up going through the quarry above Trabuco which is where we wanted to be. We carried on along this track ending up at Venta Talillas for a well earned coffee.

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Carry on Camping

Carry on Camping

By atrekinthesun   14:56   No comments:

We decided to spend a couple of days at the coast on a camp site in Torre del Mar.

Tent

After we had settled in at the camp site we went for a swim at the indoor pool and later went out for a meal to celebrate out wedding anniversary (a day early as it was bank holiday the next day and we thought places would be too busy) we had a quick look at google for the best restaurants in Torre del Mar and we had been to the number one so we went to the number two.



On the way to the restaurant we saw some unusual transport.

The restaurant was not up to our usual standard for a special meal, the food was very basic and it was full of locals ( meaning that it was very noisy) the wine was okay though. Don't think that we will be going back.
The next day after breakfast we decided to go for a bike ride from the camp site inland to Macharaviaya 14 kilometres away. We thought that this was going to be easy but after riding for 11 kilometres uphill and with only 3 kilometres left to do we arrived at a small village hoping to find a bar for coffee, we asked one of the villagers if there was a bar and she took us to a shop where we bought a cold drink. After that we decided that we had had enough, so we went by an easier downhill route to the coast road and back on the flat to the camp site calling into a bar for our long awaited coffee on the way. Another route that we will not be doing again. When we got back to the camp site it had started to fill up with people celebreating the Bank Holiday so it was a good job that we had arrived on the Thursday or we would not have got a pitch. Spent a quiet evening eating drinking and playing scrabble.
After breakfast we packed up to leave the site and drove into Torre del Mar parked up and went for a bike ride along the coast towards Torrox which was really nice and flat then went home. When we arrived at the top of our drive we could not find the house keys and searched the whole of the campervan a couple of times before we found them in a carrier bag with some biscuits, how they got there nobody knows but it was a bit of a panic until we found them.

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