We had intended staying at La Manga until after Christmas and New Year but decided to leave after eight days. The main problem was that it wasn’t a very nice campsite; it was huge with over one thousand pitches plus lots of permanent residents. The permanent’s section was like a shanty town or one of the squatter camps that we were familiar with in South Africa. The mobile homes, caravans with tents and lean-tos were cramped together with no space between them. If a fire was to start it would spread through the camp very quickly. The holiday section wasn’t as bad but the space was small and each pitch was hemmed in by large hedges.
Another problem was satellite TV reception, I could get very little even with the big dish and what I did get kept cutting out every few minutes. We paid for a month’s Wi-Fi, it kept cutting out as well, and as for downloading programmes from BBC iplayer like I was able to do at Benicassim, no chance. There were plenty of activities going on, supposedly managed by the Camping and Caravan Club of GB who were running a rally on this site. But as we had found on previous occasions with rallies the wardens were useless, they didn’t seem to know what was going on. One evening we wanted to play cribbage that was listed on the activities notice board; we spent about half an hour searching in the dark for the venue only to be told the next morning that it had been cancelled.
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| A Mediterranean bay |
It wasn’t all bad; the area was beautiful being situated beside a lake or lagoon that was enclosed by a long narrowing peninsula that looped round into the Mediterranean only leaving a small channel between its end and the mainland. The lagoon, Mar Menor, was then a large sheltered stretch of water with yachting and windsurfing very popular, the coastline was a multitude of glorious beaches which must get crowded in the summer. Inland the area was enclosed by a range of hills where we had an enjoyable walk with some people from the site one day rewarding us with magnificent views of the lagoon, peninsula and the Mediterranean coast.
Other activities, which we joined in, were the quiz night and a whist drive. We were in the team that came second in the quiz; it must be due to watching so much ‘Eggheads’ on TV. At whist Moira had a great game winning the woman’s prize of E18. Even with these enjoyable times we still wanted to go, heading out on Tuesday.
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| La Manga |
We continued our way further south for another 200 kilometres to the town of Los Gallardos, and a nice little campsite in the mountains. This was another area full of Brits who had moved to Spain to avoid the harsh winters that are now becoming a common occurrence in the UK. There were plenty of activities happening here as well, quiz nights, whist, bridge, darts, dominoes, aerobics, and many more. When we were selecting a pitch we looked for the direction to set up the satellite dish but no other ‘van appeared to have a dish in view. Later we found that they had TV from the UK piped to each pitch. It cost E25 for a month so we now have 17 channels to choose from. It seems like we made the right decision to move here, and the weather is much better as well, it was cold at La Manga.
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