The amazing Sunday morning market at Puerto de Mazarron in full swing. If you’re looking for great fruit and veg, or watches or scarves, it’s all here
Some people are on our pitch... they think it’s all over. It is now!
Sunday, January 27
Camping Las Torres, Puerto de Mazarròn It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that a month from now, on or around February 21, we’ll be moving on from here and starting our long (in distance) but short (in time) journey back to Santander, where it began around 22 months ago. There’s been a real circularity to our adventure: we began it by giving up work on Thursday, February 24, 2017 and took the Brittany ferry from Plymouth to Santander on April 16. A year later, on February 24, we were back on the ferry to get the van serviced and MOT’d and came back out last year on April 16, this time on a Dover-Calais crossing. Now we’re booked on the same February 24 Brittany ferry from Santander to Portsmouth that we took last year. Last year, we couldn’t wait to get things turned around so we could hit the road again; this time, we reckon we’ve had our fill of motorhome living, at least ‘on the road’. Our Rapido 7090F will still be our home but it will be relatively static, giving us a roof over our heads for the Spring-Summer-Autumn season at our new base, Three Cliffs Bay Holiday Park www.threecliffsbay.com in the Gower, near Swansea, where we will be working as part of the warden team. After that, we’re not sure although we’re fairly certain we will spend the winter in Derby, where we hail from, reconnecting with family and friends from way back when. At the moment, though, it’s inconceivable that we won’t come back to spend a few weeks here at Las Torres, perhaps in November after the season has finished, meeting up again with all the lovely friends we have made since we have been here. By the time we leave, we will have been here for more than 80 days, the longest we have lived anywhere over the last two years. So much has happened in that time: we have come to feel like part of the extended family that occupies this enclave in a little-known part of Spain. We share lots of quality time with people we have come to regard as good friends, and nod and exchange pleasantries with everyone else, all the folks from different countries who live side by side in a perfect – and salutary – riposte to all those who feel we don’t belong in a wider European community. If we do come back in November, we will be sure to hire a car. We’re currently on our second, a Seat Leon that we collected from the new Murcia airport at Corvera on our return from the U.K. in January. For a month, it worked out at less than €70, thanks in part to the domestic insurance we had taken out for collision damage – highly recommended. We’d also recommend Firefly, which doesn’t seem to go in for the hard-selling of extras, with the staff restricting themselves to asking a little more for an upgrade, an additional driver, unlimited mileage and to forget the €1,000 they normally ask for ‘just in case’. A car really gave us wings for the last two months of our trip. On Sunday, for example, we were able to explore right along the coast, first to El Portus, a small cove just south of Cartagena that is home to a little fishing village, a nice beach and very little else. It’s also next door to one of Spain’s naturist campsites, just for the record. Unimpressed by El Portus, we then drove around Cartagena’s southern suburbs before deciding to head for La Manga, up the coast This turned out to be a much better option. In beautiful sunshine we found a very chic little community at Cabo de Palas on the eastern side of the Mar Menor and in the shadow of the lighthouse, on a beach from where snorkelers explored the crystal-clear waters, we had a lovely little picnic. Tuesday, January 29 Aguilas Last year, while we were staying at Los Madriles, we enjoyed a trip to the multiplex cinema in Aguilas, about an hour south of here, with Eddie and Evelyn, two people we’d met at the site. This year, Eddie and I are in the same tennis group in the Port and have stayed in touch. As we’re mobile now, we decided we would go independently to one of the weekly ‘English language’ screenings of one of the popular current releases. Last year it was Three Billboards; today it is The Favourite, Olivia Colman’s period romp in which she plays a lesbian, gout-ridden version of Queen Anne. We took the chance to get to Aguilas early and have a look around this busy little seaside town and very nice it is too, if a little rundown. We couldn’t find anywhere to have dinner so ended up in the Burger King opposite the sad-looking shopping centre where the multiplex is just about the only enterprise doing any business. As we walked from the BK to the flix, who should we see but Eddie and Evelyn with two of our other friends from Los Mad’, Peter and Paula! The film was a bit of a dud, Olivia Colman aside, but it got us out of the campsite for a night and we arranged a tennis foursome for later in the week with Eddie and Paula. Wednesday, January 30 Las Torres It’s been a feature of the second year of our trip that we’ve caught up with a lot more of our friends from home than we did in year one. Today it was the turn of John and Karen Bryan, our pals from Sully, to pay us a visit. They are staying at La Zenia, about an hour north, for a few months and dropped in for the day. John and I renewed our old rivalry on the tennis court (honours even) while Jane took Karen for a coffee in Isla Plana. Then we had a menu del dia on the paseo before we ended a lovely, full day with a game of boules back at the campsite. Saturday, February 2 Murcia airport, Covera John and Karen’s visit softened us up for the whirlwind that is the Muses, who came out to see us on their second visit of the season, just a few months after we’d celebrated Jeff’s birthday out in Italy in June. We picked them up from the new airport at Covera then whisked them back to the campsite, installing them in the casa that is situated next door to the bar (it’s a lot nicer than it sounds). Their arrival heralded a full-on week of exploring the parts of the Cartagena that we either knew well and could recommend to them, or places we hadn’t seen before. So, in short order, we breezed into Cartagena itself on Monday (note to self: it shuts on Mondays) then raced around Bolnuevo (where Kathy and I swam in the sea... in February!), Murcia, had a fantastic meal in La Azohia overlooking the Med’ on Thursday (followed by a victorious quiz night back at the campsite, and then, on Friday, drove out to Calnegre for another long, leisurely and boozy lunch followed, unwisely perhaps, by another of Kathy’s wilder wild swims. By the time it came to take them back to the airport on Saturday morning, an incredible few days had come and gone in a heartbeat, leaving behind the laughs and memories that are always the by-product of a week with Kathy and Jeff. We can’t wait for the next, whenever that might be. Monday, February 11 La Zenia It was very kind of John and Karen to return the compliment and invite us up to their very swanky rented apartment in the shadow of La Zenia Boulevard, one of the biggest shopping malls in Spain. The make-up of the day very much resembled our day in Mazarron and while John was beating me up on the tennis court, the girls shopped and indulged in coffee at the boulevard. At lunch, we had a terrific Chinese meal before heading back to what seemed in comparison to be much humbler accommodation at the campsite. In the car, on the way back, we couldn’t help but feel that the Bryans have got it just about right – enjoying the best of the British weather at their lovely beachfront house in Sully before they up sticks and take shelter from the worst excesses of the Welsh winter out here in Spain. While we’ve enjoyed our two years in the van, their lifestyle choice has certainly given us something to think about. For the rest of the week, we settled back into making the most of what little time we had left in Las Torres. We had a lovely day in Cartagena with Gordon and Sue after dropping the car off at Covera, decluttered the van ready for packing away our things and, on Thursday, walked into the Port for a tapas tea at Bar Angel. On Friday, we dusted off our much-neglected bikes and cycled into the Port before having a traditional English fish and chip lunch at CJs bar, the home of everything British in Mazarron. If it sounds like an outpost of Benidorm, it isn’t... it’s much nicer than that! Tuesday, February 19 Camping Las Torres We had debated leaving Las Torres on a number of different dates but when we saw posters going up for the annual pétanque tournament on February 19 and 20 we decided to stick around for a few more days and leave when it was over. Organised by ‘Big’ Bob, the man who had taken over our pitch on A, relocating us into the slightly less spacious and non-satellite-friendly B section, it saw more than 30 people from all over the site sign up for two days of international fun and competition. On the Tuesday, we joined everyone in putting our names into the hat and seeing who we were drawn with and against. Then, after two games in the morning and two in the afternoon, followed by two more games on Wednesday, everyone gathered in the bar to hear the results and applaud the winners. It was great to see the bar full of people from all different nationalities laughing and joking together, so different to how it normally is, when people tend to organise themselves into cliques, and the French hardly ever turn out at all. It made us think that they should try to organise themselves into doing these tournaments every week or at least every month... or the site should do it for them. Then, with the prizes awarded, we went back to the van to prepare for our last supper – a meal with Sue, Gordon, Phil and Carol at Gran Mundo, our favourite all-you-can-eat Chinese restaurant in the port. It was a bittersweet (and sour!) occasion, as you might imagine: we had loved everything about our time at Las Torres and felt blessed to have met so many lovely people. Part of us, a large part, wanted to forget everything about going home and back to work and just stick around... the increasingly warm temperatures and glorious sunshine, compared with stories of wind and rain back in the U.K., were proving hard to resist. Nevertheless, the next day we packed away the last of our things and prepared to say our goodbyes to Sue and Gordon. They had written us a lovely note in their farewell card and, in return, I wanted to put something together but I really struggled with the words. I’m not used to feeling close to people I haven’t known long but it felt like we had been friends for years. It was easy to share our thoughts and hopes with them, and let them into the confidences and crises we share only with our closest friends. They are inspirational, kind, genuine and loving and when we finally said our goodbyes our hugs said more than I could say in a note. Of all the new people we have met in the last two years, they have been the loveliest and the ones we struggled most to leave behind. We’re sure, though, that we will meet again soon. Thursday, February 22 Aire, Ucles, south of Madrid By leaving reasonably early on the Thursday, we tried to break the back of the long 600-plus-mile journey back to Santander on our first day back in the road. After driving over the mountain to Cartagena for some much-needed gas and fuel, we embarked on a 250-mile drive to a little village just south of Madrid where Jane had read there was a promising free camperstop near a lovely little town. She wasn’t wrong – Ucles is a very dramatic settlement rising out of the plains, dominated by a huge monastery perched on top of a hill above the town. We found the aire, in the car park of a grain store, at about 3pm and by 4pm we were having a look around the monastery, by then just closing its public areas for the day. In the town, though, we found a nice bar open and had a couple of drinks, as much to say we had put something back into the community as for refreshment. Friday, February 23 Aire, Aranda de Duero, Burgos Another well-reviewed aire that lived up to its billing... once we’d found it! According to the Internet, the aire here in this busy, working town is in a section of a large car park about 200m from the main commercial centre. It is, but we only found it because another camper had parked in its new location, a good 100m from where our co-ordinates said it should be. We made it here just after lunch having eaten up the 100 or so miles easily thanks to the excellent road system that Spain is blessed with. This allowed us to have a quick look at the town and then go back in later for a proper Friday night exploring the bars and cafes of Aranda. Saturday, February 24 Aire, Aguilar de Campoo, Castile and León Another 100 miles and we were back to a stopover we had first visited around the same time last year, when the weather had been much colder. This time, the nice conditions had brought more vans to this little aire in the car park of the local school and where we had just one neighbour last year, this year we had nine or 10. After setting up, we made it into the town in the early evening and started looking for a restaurant. There wasn’t much choice but after one circuit of the town we settled on a little Italian bistro/pizzeria called La Dolce Vita, something we felt we would be leaving behind the next day when it came to catch the ferry from Santander back to Portsmouth. Appropriately enough, we had a lovely meal for around €20 a head. When will we get something that good for that price again, we wondered,with one eye on the restaurants we can expect to encounter back home. Sunday, February 25 Santander The port was just 50 miles or less from our last stop and there was a palpable air of sadness in the van as we ambled up the motorway for our rendezvous with the Baie de Seine, Brittany Ferries’ ‘no-frills’ ship. We made it to the port in good time, took our place in the queue and had a walk along the front at Santander, impressed by the architecture and by how much had changed since we first started to come here, probably around 20 years ago. It remains the best portal into Spain and Brittany Ferries the best way to cross the Channel and the Bay of Biscay. The Baie de Seine might be no frills but we had two excellent meals on board and spent the night in a fantastic cabin, with a double bed and fabulous en suite facilities, plus a telly and a Blue Ray player! The crossing was rougher than we had expected, and being on the top deck may not have helped, but we managed to hold our food down and get some sleep and by the time we’d had a nap the following afternoon, Blighty was in sight and we docked at 9pm British time. An hour later, we were on the road and heading for Bristol. We thought we would avoid the usual cliches about the state of British roads but it was impossible. Having travelled what seemed like the length and breadth of Europe, through dirt-poor countryside and rich, shiny cities, covering around 13,000 miles, we never encountered any serious roadworks, traffic jams or hold-ups anywhere. But 10 minutes out of Portsmouth, we found the M27 closed and we’re diverted onto a crazy route back to Bristol which took us on the M3 to Basingstoke and then to the M4. And don’t even get me started on the state of the roads in Bristol! Still, at about 12.45am, we finally managed to crawl into bed and were both asleep almost as soon as our heads hit the pillow. In the morning, we heard that back in Las Torres some people were on our pitch. They think it’s all over... it is now! |
Pictured, from top, the rugged coast around the Puerto de Mazzaron shoreline; one of Kathy's shots of the countryside around Cartagen as spring starts to bloom; the four of us in La Azohia; swimming in Bolnuevo in February!; looking at Puerto de Mazzaron from the surounding hills - a perfect place to pitch up for the night; Jane and Sue at the petanque prize-giving; Gordon acting the giddy goat; the monastery as seen from our pitch at Ucles; the quayside at Santander; our cabin on the Baie de Seine
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