More Of The Same

Our next door neighbour is a very friendly and funny Dutchman, who has been motorhoming for 30 years.  He told us he is a bit of a sportsman and likes to stay active but said that his wife prefers 'shitting ... always shitting, that is all she does shit, shit, shit!'  We thought she had had a dodgy paella but it turns out that what he meant was that she prefers just sitting on the beach etc!!

  

They have been here for 3 weeks. so I asked him what he did about water and dumping your 'sit'!  

He told me that just down the road there is a service station and for 1.50 Euros (£1.12 / $2.44) you can fill with water, empty the waste tank and empty the toilet cassette.  As we were onto our last cassette and are getting low on water we took off in search of the servo this afternoon.  He was right it was about 3 ks away; we also checked the air pressure in the tyres, topped up the screen wash and checked all the other levels.  

Whilst in the servo Elaine took the opportunity to purchase a mask and snorkel. 

Now we can stay at our beach spot even longer, although we must leave on Sunday so we can find a bar to watch the Aussies beat the Argies in the World Cup.

Back at the beach we managed to get our old parking spot back and a few minutes later she was off spying on the fish ...

As it was Friday we had to take the Happy Friday selfie to send to our good boaty friends, the Aston Marina 'hardcore' group ...

Then she was back in again! 

Does my face look strange in this? 

In the early evening we went for a circular walk, starting off on the track leading to our site ...

And ending up at the next beach along the coast but by the inland route ...

The Spanish fleet were having a siesta in the bay ...

Another 2, the whole bloody fleet must be here! 

We headed off back to our site along the coast route.  The setting sun was creating amazing colours ...

It was nearly dark by the time we got back to our beach.  We had just enough time to have a play with Bombo before it was time to head back to the van for some curry ...

Another lovely day in this most wonderful part of Spain.

Paradise Found

... as long as you don't hanker after loads of bars, restaurants, water parks, amusements, high rises etc!

I couldn't publish the blog last night as the signal was too dodgy.

So, back to yesterday.....

I left Elaine in the land of nod and went for a walk up to the cliff top.  It was the start of another superb day ...

Trying out the selfie flip up screen....yep it works!

Later in the day we went for a walk along the southern headland where we found another superb beach and about 30 motorhomes all parked up ...

Playa La Carolina ... make a note if you are down this way!

It also had a secluded little cove around the corner ...

Totally unspoilt ...

Apart from some deserted cave houses ...

I don't know how old they are but some had reo bars in the walls ...

I can't emphasise enough what a beautiful place this is.  We feel so lucky and privileged to be able to take this amazing journey ...

Shot into the sun and it came out like this!

In the afternoon it was swim time.  I'm not going to lie and say it was lovely and warm, but it was very pleasant and because the air temperature is so warm its no hardship.  El is not good at getting in cold water, so she subathed instead!

We then went for a late afternoon walk up the southern cliff, looking down at our mooring. La Carolina beach is around the next headland ...

We cut across inland heading back to base ...

The moobs are getting bigger!

There was just enough time for a play on the beach with Bombo before the sun went down.

As you can see Sammie is always straining on the lead as he hates the beach ...

We couldn't find a stick so he had to make do with a nice old smelly bit of discarded rope (which he loved!) ...

The end to a glorious day in Paradise.

THIS MORNING ...

We were awoken by the horn of the baker's delivery van!  Magic!  Fresh bread and croissants!  What a great service ... all the campers were there bleary eyed, well it was after 08.00!! 

I had a quick look down at the beach and noticed the Spanish navy sailing by ...

Looks like the start of another lovely day ... 

Wish you were here xxxxx

A Perfect Spot

We had a very good sleep last night.  It was very quiet on the shores of the Mar Manor.

However, this morning we hadn't been up long when we heard a lot of noise.  We looked out and discovered there were about 100 Spanish school kids walking along the beach towards us ...

The dogs went suitably nuts when they passed!  Gawd knows where they were going to, there isn't much around there. 

As you can see we also had a lot of rain overnight ... 

We then went for a walk with the doggies.  Once again it is a very nice suburb but not a soul about ...

We stopped off at a Shell servo to fill with water and then headed off along the coast road to the province of Almeria.

We are now getting into what we refer to as the 'real Spain'.... no high rise crap, just harsh countryside (but quite pretty in its own way) ...

We stopped off for a 'smoko' up one of the passes ...

We ended up at Aguilas, on the coast, and checked out a couple of wild camping spots.  We decided they were too close to the town for our liking so we drove for a little further and found a most perfect spot ... just what we had been looking for. 

As you can see from snapshot of the microsoft autoroute map we are the red dot below Aguilas.  The 'W's are wild camping spots for motorhomes.  They are not official spots but as they are out of the way you don't get moved on by the old bill ...

Here we are moored up, with El giving a wave ...

It is an absolutely lovely spot.

That's us on the far left ...

Very nice beach ...

I climbed further up the hill to get some shots.  That is us second on the left.  There are no poms here at all, Dutch, German, Swiss and a Belgian.

So, as I said second from the left ... lets try out the new camera zoom, which is the main reason we stuck with the Lumix ...  it has a cracking zoom for such a little camera 20x optical zoom. 

Not too shabby ... you can see Bombo standing on a chair on the left of the pic ... zoom in a bit further ...

.... not bad for a pretty cheap camera, I reckon!

We are very happy with this spot and will stay her till we run out of water, which will be about Saturday all going well. 

The Cat Lady Of Mojacar!

This is Elaine's new moniker, as she has now started feeding a few of the local stray cats ...

They are very friendly little pussies - they are quite siamese looking.  What we think happens is that they are just left behind when their owners bugger off for the winter,  Elaine is going to contact the local animal welfare group to see if they can help them;  the animal welfare group is run by ex-pat poms, animal welfare is not a priority for the average Spaniard.  

They were very hungry this morning!  There is a black one as well, hiding in the trees!

We had breakfast at one of the remaining open cafes, which is run by a couple of poms and is a very nice cafe.  We had a long chat with them about running a business and living in Spain in general.  The business is up for sale as they have enough of the corrupt business practices of the local council.  They have been running the cafe for about 10 years and every year another official wants a handout for ridiculous things.  They will carry on living here though as they do enjoy the lifestyle.  

After brunch and our chat we went on a little road trip to Aguilas, which is about a one hour drive up the coast from us.

The route we took was up the scenic coast road.  We found quite a lot of motorhomers parked up on the beach fronts along the way!

The first lot we came across were very much 'clothes optional' travellers ... there was meat and two veg all over the place!

No close ups!

The second group were parked up in a really nice spot ... I want another motorhome!!!!

We didn't spot any pommie vans at either place though, so I don't know where they are all hiding out!

We arrived at Aguilas at the start of the siesta so we had the town to ourselves ...

There was an old Spanish steam train parked up in the middle of the town, as you do!  It was built in Glasgow in 1905!

How about this for a dove, bloody kids with their spray cans!

We managed to grab a seat outside a restaurant for a mid afternoon snack.  I had an ice cream sundae and El had some patatas and mushrooms (tapas)!  Strange, but that is what she fancied :)

The town square was lovely, as was the weather, which hovered around 24 degrees for most of the day.

Can you spot the spray painted dove in the tree?

The locals were playing petanque on the beach ...

Aguilas is very much a 'Spanish working town' ...

... meaning that it is is not predominately a tourist town ...

Most of the locals live in flats ...

On the way back to base we ended up on the tollway, 34 kilometres and 4.50 Euros.

We spotted one other car!!! 

We stopped off at the supermarket on the way back to buy some cat biscuits, then called in on the felines to give them their evening meal!