Week 3. 28th of December 2024 – 3rd of January 2025. Mar Menor to Cabo de Gata – 130 miles.
Saturday 28th of December 2024 (Mar Menor day 2)
Cloud, cloud, cloud everywhere, with a small rain shower this morning. Our first morning on the Mar Menor where the weather was forecast to be sunny, big sun though, 18 degrees…! What a letdown. No matter we are up and about and we have had what Hayley calls, “…the best breakfast of the trip so far!…“. Del does the breakfast and today it’s just a simple arrangement of the remainder of the fresh eggs from the other day, hash browns and bacon, toast and coffee… We have a small van but Hayley does some great dinners and Del does a good breakfast on board Jess, so we don’t see why things like good eating should change despite the size of the cooking area.
Today we are hoping to get out on our bikes and get some proper exercise. So far this trip has been a bit disappointing, we have done some walking, but that’s just local. We have been concentrating on getting as far south as possible so we have been arriving late and leaving early some days. We are also going out for dinner tonight to an excellent local restaurant called Kinita. It is attached, but independent, from the campsite. It’s highly regarded and we have been before and had a fabulous dinner. We are hoping for their tasting menu tonight.
We finally get the bikes off the back of Jess, two weeks after setting off.
We have a fabulous cycle along the front from the campsite to the town of Los Alcozares. A small, typical Spanish town that has the biggest nativity setup we’ve seen. The Spanish like to put a nativity scene in the town, either in the town square or church or both.
They keep them up until past the 6th of January (King’s Day or Epiphany). This one not only shows the nativity but the whole of Bethlehem and other places. It’s rather good. We cycle around the town some more, visiting a chemist and a hardware shop.
The cycle back is bright and sunny, beautiful. The view of the strip, (la Manga) of the Mar Menor is clear on the other side. We stop and have a coffee and a coke and soak up some of the sunshine.
What a lovely day. We clock up a modest 9 miles. Not much but it’s a start. More tomorrow.
Back at Jess we spend a couple of hours in the sun reading, a marathon read. Del finally finishes a book he’s had going for weeks now. He finishes just as the sun and the day is cooling off, around 5 pm. It’s been a lovely afternoon. We have a hot shower and get ready for dinner.
It’s a cool 3-minute walk from Jess to the restaurant, but inside it’s warm and inviting. We are looked after very well by the staff and we order the tasting menu, 2 snacks, 2 starters, 2 mains and 2 desserts for 50 euros each. Excellent value and excellent food all presented expertly in this lovely restaurant.
After many years of being associated with Spain, Del finally tries a vermouth as an aperitif and is hooked. Vermouth is regarded as a very typical Spanish drink and there are many bars specialising in it. Somehow it has escaped our notice until now.
Two hours later we leave the restaurant absolutely full, but satisfied. It has been our 4th visit there, 5th for Hayley as she came here last year when Del was working in Berlin.
We have been to a lot of eateries in Spain, and Kinita is, at the moment, our favourite.
Sunday 29th of December 2024 (Mar Menor day 3)
It’s a sunny morning today, albeit a little cool. We manage a very simple, light breakfast outside and plan on doing a long cycle ride today.
As the morning wears on the clouds slowly disappear leaving behind clear blue skies. We don’t waste any time and get ready to go out for the day on the bikes. The plan is to cycle around the Mar Menor as far as we can. The boring bit is cycling around the military airport next door which is not operating today, the campsite is on the opposite side of the runway. It’s all nice and flat so we shouldn’t be moaning really.
It’s a great day for a bike ride. Soon, we arrive at Santiago de la Ribera, where a lot of the urban furniture is a nod to the Spanish Air Force. There is an air training centre here.
All the benches are aircraft wings, with statues of planes, plane parts, and helmets dotted along the bike and pedestrian route. It’s all very nice. We stop at a small cafe and enjoy a coffee and watch the world go by. We have full sunshine. It’s glorious.
Back on the bikes and it’s non-stop to Playas de la Llana which takes us past the salt pits and wading flamingos. Playas de la Llana is a beach with a great view of the Med and we remember passing here a few times on Stargazer our boat.
Indeed once we stopped at the Mar Menor at San Juan de Pinatar to visit Hayley’s Auntie and Uncle who once lived here in a beautiful house. Here are a few snaps from 20 years ago…!!!
The whole area is fabulous. It’s full of life with plenty to see and do. Great for walking, and as we found, cycling.
We stay at the beach for a while, gazing into the horizon and watching boats go back and forth.
It’s a lovely day, but we have to turn back if we want to be back before it gets too cold.
On the way back we can’t help ourselves, we have to stop for a Menu del dia (menu of the day).
For 15 euros we get a three-course lunch with a drink, we sit outside, it’s fantastic. We get back on the bikes and back to Jess. Today we have done an 18-mile cycle, better than yesterday, but we could do better.
We have an evening in tonight, no dinner. We settle in and watch two episodes of Squid Games 2. We were a bit confused for the first half an hour as to what was going on, but a quick google solved that.
It’s a cold night tonight. Nice warm days, but very cold by night!
Monday 30th of December 2024 (Mar Menor day 4)
The weather has no idea what it’s doing today. We had a splash of rain last night and it’s a bit grey and cloudy first thing, but as the morning moves along it gets brighter. The local Airforce are busy today, planes are zooming about.
We take our chances and set out for a long walk. The weather has brightened up a lot, and it’s a lovely walk. We walk about 11,000 steps, or 4 and a bit miles.
We get back to Jess just in time, and the heavens open up. We get torrential rain, thunder, and lightning. It’s a massive storm. We stay for the rest of the day. Del does some homework for upcoming jobs in the new year, and Hayley reads and pesters Del!
We spend the evening in and have a fantastic dinner of chicken and long green peppers. Ace. We settle down and watch a movie—The Matrix. Del has never seen it, it’s a good film. We start thinking that we would take the red pill, but by the time the film finishes we’d rather have the blue one after all. Ignorance is bliss.
Despite the weather, we have had a good day. We’ve had a good long walk, witnessed a massive storm, had a good dinner and watched a movie. Not bad for a Monday…
Tuesday 31st of December 2024 (Mar Menor day 5)
The last day of 2024. More rain today, but we will be going out to our favourite restaurant here again, Kinita. We had a fantastic dinner there the other night so we thought we would give them a try for lunch. We spend the morning indoors. Del gets some more homework done.
The rain and the thunder today are massive again and we are lucky to get a small break in the intensity of the rain and make it to the restaurant.
The lunch doesn’t disappoint. It is delicious and truly amazing, and as we are sitting there the rain stops and we got a good view of the bay and across to the strip on the opposite side. The visibility is crystal clear despite the cloud.
We are spending the night on Jess to bring in the New Year, along with all our other campers who will be doing similar. It’s a lovely afternoon back at Jess.
For the evening we have a very light snack of Spanish tapas and a glass of fizz and we settle down to watch some more Squid Game.
Midnight fast approaches and we celebrate the start of 2025 with another glass of fizz and reach out to friends and family to wish them a Happy New Year.
We stick our heads out of the van to see what’s happening at the campsite. There are a few sporadic cheers and giggling. We toast our immediate neighbours (in our best German) and retreat back inside.
It’s been a very good day today. We like it here…
Wednesday 1st of January 2025 (HAPPY NEW YEAR…!) (Mar Menor to Palomares – 80 miles)
Happy New Year to you all. We hope and wish that you all have a good 2025, wherever you are and whatever you are doing. Don’t let them grind you down!
We are up late and take our time packing up after our five-night stay. The outside stuff is all wet and gritty after the huge amounts of rain that we have had here. We have been parked on ramps to level Jess up and when Hayley rolls back off them a torrent of water pours from off the roof and into the open side window, whoops. A hasty mop-up is done before it can get into the battery compartment, then we set off on our way south. It’s a nice day today, with a few clouds, but it’s sunny and warm. The roads are empty, we drive for miles and miles without seeing a car.
We are heading to a free overnight spot, a regular place in the town of Palomares, right on the beach. When we eventually arrive it’s busy. New Year’s Day here is very popular with people from all over Europe, and why not… We slowly drive along the beach and find somewhere, side on to the sea. It’s fantastic. The sun is out and the sea is blue. We get settled in and just sit outside Jess looking at the sea reading our books. A great way to spend the first day of the year. We love it.
Our sunset…
By 4 pm the temperature is cooling off a little so we take our chairs in, turn on the hot water and have showers and settle in. The sun is setting and tonight we are having ‘Spanish Night’ on board. We have some Spanish goodies to eat with some music and dancing. Tricky in a 6m van!
Bedtime, as we settle down all we can hear is the sea breaking on the beach, fabulous (oh and Del snoring).
Thursday 2nd of January 2025 (Palomares to Cabo de Gata – 51 miles)
We have had some good weather so far on the trip, but we have had some unbelievable storms, it seems that the whole of Europe is suffering from terrible weather at this time. Back home in the UK, there have been some strong winds and heavy rain, with snow on the way.
We had a lovely night in Palomares, very, very chilled.
We have a light breakfast and set off. There’s nothing to decamp today as we have been wild camping so it’s just a tidy-up and we are done. We need to do some shopping so we stop at the Consum Supermarket in the town of Palomares. Another of Hayley’s favourite supermarkets. Sad innit?
We are fully loaded and it will be just over an hour to our next stop which is the southeastern tip of Spain, (that’s the bottom right of Spain as it goes around the corner.) We are going to a regular place Camping Cabo de Gata. Which is in Andalucia, considered the poorest region of Spain, it’s very dry and arid but covered in greenhouses made from plastic sheeting. This area provides the bulk of the fruit and veg in Europe.
It’s a beautiful warm day. 18 degrees… The drive is fantastic, the scenery has changed. It’s more mountainous, dry and brown.
Finally, we arrive at Cabo de Gata and we are given a very nice pitch for our 3-night stay. First things first.
We have lunch, a fine salad and some ‘Chiperones’ (baby squid) Fantastic…! It’s time for Jess’s weekly clean and we have a bit of cleaning up to do after the soggy stay at the Mar Menor, so everything is pulled out of the storage locker, known as the garage, and the inside of the van is clean and swept out to within an inch of it’s life!
The rest of the afternoon is spent reading in the waning afternoon sunshine. At around 5 pm the birds, including some green parrots, get quite chatty as they settle into their nests, which are the numerous palm trees around the site.
Friday 3rd of January 2025 (Cabo de Gata day 2)
A bright sunny morning this morning, with the sun on our pitch. It’s warm enough to have breakfast outside today. Without wasting any time, Del springs into action and prepares a full breakfast of bacon, eggs, hash browns, toast and fresh coffee. Lovely.
We need to get some laundry done and there is a good facility for doing it. Hayley sets off while Del is sorting out breakfast. After putting our laundry in a queue earlier and then having two German ladies push in at the washing machines Hayley puts her foot down and gets stroppy, our washing is soon loaded in.
The rest of the morning is spent reading and enjoying the warm sunshine while drying our washing on a line between our trees. Very handy. Once the clothes are dried and put away, we get our walking boots on and set off for a good walk towards the beach.
There used to be lakes and a small river that ran through her but it’s all dried up. There is one small lake left where there is some wildlife pecking about; ducks, cormorants and 4 white flamingos.
The wind is building and it’s supposed to be very windy this afternoon. We have a good walk and make our way back to Jess to do some more reading outside which goes well until the clouds come along and take away the sun…
Not to be defeated we just get in Jess close the door and carry on…
French night tonight for dinner. Steak, dauphinoise potatoes and green beans with a splash of red wine.
Oh yes, it's a lovely place. We are south now ready to go to Denmark. How are you doing?