We are in Conil in the south of Spain. It is between Gibraltar and the Portugal border and near the port of Cadiz. We were here three years ago and enjoyed it so much we decided to come again for a month before heading for the Algarve for the rest of the winter. At the site we are staying, La Rosaleda, it has good Wi-Fi covering the whole campsite and it is the first freely available internet that I have been able to use since leaving the UK. So this is the opportunity to relax and update my blog for this year’s attempt to follow the sun.
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| Jacob's Ladder to Kinder Scout |
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We left Scotland early in September and slowly made our way south. We had several stops to do some walking. Our first stop was at Edale in the Peak district of Derbyshire; this is where the Pennine way begins and we had wanted to come back here from the time when we did that long distance path. We spent a weekend exploring the ridges overlooking Edale and Castleton and climbed Kinder Scout. Next we made our way to north Wales and did two walks that had been tackled by Julia Bradbury in her series of hikes for her BBC TV programmes. One was in her Canal walks and took the towpath from Llangollen to the Pontcysllte Aqueduct. The Pontcysllte Aqueduct, ‘the stream through the skies’, an engineering masterpiece was built by Thomas Telford. This wasn’t a big transport canal but a feeder canal taking water from the River Dee at the Horseshoe Falls to supply the Ellesmere Canal. There were some holiday narrow boats on this stretch but they had difficulties at times when coming in opposite directions on this narrow waterway. These barges were all powered by diesel engines but at Llangollen there were some tourist boats that were towed along the bank by large shire horses. The other Welsh walk was in Julia’s series on walks along old railway lines that had been closed by Beeching in the 1960’s. This one took us from Dolgellau to Barmouth on the coast. It was an easy stroll along the tarred over railway track and followed the river Afon Mawddach with its multitude of bird life. At the mouth of the river we crossed over a long railway bridge to Barmouth on the other side.
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| The Pontcysllte Aqueduct |
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| The stream in the sky |
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| Horse power on the Llangolen canal |
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| Foot bridge over the River Afon Mawddach |
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| Afon Mawddach estuary |
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| Railway bridge at Barmouth |
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| Caen Hill locks |
From north Wales we headed for Cardiff and spent a weekend with Margaret and Justin. I ran the time trial in the park that Margaret does every week. It was 5 km and I managed it in 26 minutes. Not bad as I haven’t been doing much running training recently. When we left Cardiff it was for another of the Canal walks, this was on the Avon Kennet canal and the highlight was at the start, Caen Hill near Devizes, where there is a series of locks one after the other to the top of the hill. The line of 16 locks that raised the canal 235 feet were described by Julia Bradbury as ‘one of the Seven Wonders of British Waterways’. Once a narrow boat starts on the locks it has to keep going, there is no stopping point in between. We stopped on the steady climb up the hill to watch people operating the lock gate system. They are all manual and it is hard work opening and closing the gates by pushing on the long arms to manoeuvre them into position. The walk from Caen Hill along the towpath ends at the Regency city of Bath on the river Avon. We spent a day in the city and toured the many beautiful sights and buildings that are highlighted in many of the Jane Austin novels.
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| Heading for Caen Hill locks |
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| A heron on the Avon Kennet canal |
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| Bath Abbey |
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| Royal Crescent, Bath |
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| Another view of the Royal Crescent |
Moira had booked the ferry while we were in Cardiff and we left the campsite we were staying at on the canal and made it to Dover for the crossing that same evening. When we got over to Calais we spent the night in the aire overlooking the harbour, it was very busy and we had to squeeze in to one of the few remaining spots. As we travelled south through France we were rewarded by remarkably sunny and warm weather and surprisingly they were enjoying a similar Indian summer in the UK. We were able to keep in touch with the happenings back home through our satellite reception of the BBC and other UK channels right down to the south of France. The small satellite dish was sufficient and I didn’t have to set up our big 1.5m monstrosity until we got to Conil. While travelling the big dish was strapped to the towel rail in the toilet and it was out of the way there.
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| Beautiful lake beside the aire |
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| The old town of Saint Jean d’Angely |
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| The aire at Saint Jean d’Angely | |
Through France we camped at a few places where we had stayed at before, Le Crotoy on the river Somme, St.Valery en Caux situated below towering white cliffs, Le Sap a little village with the aire beside a delightful little duck pond and then to Soustons Plage. This last place was one of our favourites near Biarritz and the Spanish border. It is next to a large lake with a path around the perimeter. We walked the path, cycled it and I ran the route on numerous occasions. Moira got the chance to try out her new electrically power bicycle and is enjoying it enormously. We stayed at Soustons Plage for 15 days and I managed to get out every day for a run, my longest was 15 km. It was a fairly cheap fortnight here with the aire costing only E6 per night and that included electricity.
When we left France we decide to head to the south of Spain as directly and as quickly as possible. We didn’t want to travel down the Costas and for a change went down the centre using toll roads and motorways all the way. The route took us to overnight stops at Palencia and Caceres both on the Ruta de la Plata. This is the route that crosses the plateau that covers the middle of the country. There is a walking route that follows close to this road, the Via de la Plata and is another of the numerous variations of the Camino de Santiago and joins the ‘French’ route, the one we walked a few years ago, at Leon to make its way to Santiago de Compostella. We are going to do some research into this pilgrimage route and may do it in the spring before we return to Scotland.
I was expecting the site at Conil to be busy with lots of people already here for the winter but it was quiet with lots of spots available for us to choose from. We took our time and got a place that was in the sun for most of the day and it had a clear view for TV reception. Also as I mentioned earlier we had an excellent Wi-Fi signal. Now we have an iPad we can pick up the internet on it as well as our laptop. Moira also has the newspaper downloaded each day and we don’t have to go searching for a shop selling UK papers. A few days before we arrived there had been a lot of rain here and the pitches were muddy, but now the sun is blazing down and it hasn’t taken long for the clay soil to be baked hard again.
We are planning to stay here for about 6 weeks then move on to Portugal and the Algarve. We have booked into the site at Albufiera from the middle of December and will be there until March. We are looking forward to lots of warm sunny days while it gets cold and snows in Scotland.
