This trip, like the September one, has been written up from memory!
This was our first trip to Spain with the motorhome, as it’s too hot for us in summer and, for many years, we’ve nearly always spent a few winter weeks on the Canary Islands. We decided in the autumn though that we’d give the Canaries a rest and try a few weeks, during the darkest part of winter, in southern Spain and we were not disappointed even though we had picked their wettest, coldest winter in ten years; it was still as dry and much warmer than back home, in addition to which we were fortunate enough to be in the south when it snowed along the eastern coastline!
We left home on 5th Dec and headed on a very cold and foggy afternoon straight to Dover, where we parked overnight on Marine Parade, which worked well as we’d booked an early ferry. We’ve heard that parking is now banned along there, but don’t take our word for it, as we haven’t checked it out ourselves.
We both read the ferry Rag during the crossing and were persuaded to change our onward route as there was an advert for a German Christmas market being held that week in Arras; we arrived in time for a street food lunch and it became our first stopover.
A Frosty Loire Sunrise
As it had taken us further west than our planned stop at Conty we continued straight down, west instead of our usual route east of Paris and used a camperstop on the riverbank at Pouilly-sur-Loire for the 2nd night. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon when we arrived, but we woke next morning to find a thick white frost covering everything.
Millau Bridge as seen from the viewing area
Another long drive south took us down to Millau, where we’d stayed for several days 6 years ago, this time though we stayed on the carpark at the Viewing Aire. As you may know, several years ago there was an amazing bridge built there which spans the Tarn gorge, in fact some of you know that I did a tandem parapente there in 2011 (it’s on the website, with pictures!)
After waking up to a very frosty morning again we headed off to the Aire des 4 Vents on the harbour at Gruissan, close to Narbonne, having decided that it would be a good place to stop off for a couple of days.
Gruissan Harbour
We actually stayed an extra night as we liked the town and found the (mostly) mild weather a pleasant change. On Mon we made our last stopover of the trip in France, at Le Boulou, where we met Steve and Marie, a very friendly and helpful couple who had done this trip before and gave us a long list of good camperstop options, most of which we used. By now, they will be busy in the west country because they spend much of the year as campsite wardens back home. Our thanks also go to Caroline and Jim, who took the time, before we set off, to email some info on places that they had used, which we’ve found very helpful.
The pretty coastal town of San Feliu de Guixols was our first stop in Spain. The next day turned into a very interesting drive; John had looked at the European atlas, in conjunction with the very poor map pages in the camperstop book and found a good place (i.e. free or very cheap!) at El Muntells which was on our route, meaning it was along the coast.
Fellow campers travel in style at El Muntells!
SatNav eventually got us there, after we’d duly followed it for miles off the beaten track through salt flats. We’d been trying to buy a Spanish road atlas since Dover and had we managed it before this point we’d have chosen a different stopover; sadly though it wasn’t a lesson learned, because a similar thing happened again in May at the beginning of our Polish trip as neither of us had remembered to buy a Polish one online. Road atlases are two a penny at home but, for some reason, they’re nearly as rare as hen’s teeth once over the Channel.
Next day we pulled into “Vizmar”, which we believed to be a (listed) camperstop at the entrance to an ACSI campsite at Peniscola, but to our surprise we had to pay full site rates, even though they were small overnight pitches poked onto the entrance to the site proper; other people had been caught out too. We forgave them though the next day because they had bucketsful of mandarin oranges for sale in reception and they were the best we tasted throughout the whole trip! Peniscola would have been worth a few days stay in better weather, but it was so cold and windy that we moved on again next day, down to Daimus near Gandia onto the Area Camper Dunes camperstop; a great little place, practically a fully functioning site, with showers, laundry and wifi. They also had torrential rain there through the night and one poor French couple got flooded out when one of their roof vents let the water in; we had a little through our bathroom vent, but it didn’t seem so bad after hearing what they’d suffered!
When we set off again, by then nearly lunchtime on a Saturday, we first went in search of Land and Sea, a company I’d found online, who sell Autogas accessories amongst many other things and we desperately needed a new connection so that we could fill our gas tank in Spain; we’d managed to leave ours at home, but we found out that it wouldn’t have been any good anyway because it had been replaced by a different one. Without the fitting we’d have had to rely on finding filling stations or, more likely, specialised gas stations, that had a fitting we could borrow because, bizarrely, none of them actually bothers to sell them, even though they had lots of customers who needed one.
We overnighted in Alicante, but only because we’d had a long, wet, miserable day! Otherwise we’d have moved further on because we found 2 listed camperstops there, the first of which looked as if it had been closed for years and appeared to be a winter dumping ground for the local circus and the 2nd, where we did stay, was a right dive behind a locked gate at the side of a scruffy service station. We understand that Alicante is a beautiful place, but we didn’t bother to hang around because next morning the rain was still in Spain, on the plain and everywhere else! We drove inland, close to Murcia and stayed at Ceuti; next day we stopped at Lorqui, which was just down the road.
Cabo de Palos lighthouse
Pitches seen from on high!
In Tshirts on 20th Dec!
Moving on, we headed back to the Med coast to Cabo de Palos; it had stopped raining there and the sun had got its hat on, so we stayed a couple of nights. It has a lovely harbour front where we had lunch and it was so warm sitting in the sun that we had our coats off for the first time in the 2 weeks we’d been away!
After that an overnight stop at La Ahozia, practically on the beach, which was great; we arrived just before the bread van which was an added bonus, especially as there were cakes on offer too! We’ve heard that this “tolerated” listed camperstop was stopped early in the new year, so be warned as it’s in the 2017 book. It was now 22nd Dec so next morning we headed off, just down the road to Las Torres, an ACSI campsite at Puerto de Mazarron, where we received a very warm welcome.
No roughing it at Christmas for our Dutch neighbours!
We stocked up en route with loads of Christmas goodies too; I’d packed a small slab of Christmas cake, a dozen mince pies and one or two other small bits, but the Spanish supermarkets were overflowing with very tempting stuff of course, which we don’t see in our shops, so….when in Rome, eat what the Spanish eat in this instance!
While we were shopping John was very cold and said he didn’t feel too good and that, unfortunately, turned out to be the start of what appeared to be the ‘flu, but by Christmas Day he had another problem so I googled and found that ‘flu symptoms are the same as for a Urinary Tract infection. Nieves, the receptionist on duty, was a great help and, on her advice, we went next morning (John insisted he didn’t need to go on Christmas Day!) direct to Urgencias at Cartagena hospital where they did loads of tests and took various samples straightaway. The outcome was that he was kept in for four days, on intravenous antibiotics and we can’t praise the medical staff there highly enough; he was extremely well looked after and even the hospital food was good! (As with his illness in Budapest 6 months previously, everything was covered by his EHIC, so we didn’t need to fall back on the travel insurance we’d taken out.) I, meantime, was parked up on the hospital car park and slept in the motorhome! I went back to check out of the campsite and update Nieves and our “neighbours”, Dutch, German, French, Welsh and Scottish, all of whom had shown great concern for a couple of days. Hello now to Katherine and Ian from the Isle of Barra and to Cheryl and Steve from near Cardiff; also, thanks again Steve for keeping our bits and pieces safe when then the storm came.
Cartegena Hospital from my carpark home!
Las Torres is a lovely site, with very friendly staff, entertainment if you want it and a restaurant where we enjoyed a very tasty meal. He left hospital on 29th Dec. and we drove only a short distance from the hospital, just to be on the safe side, and stayed overnight on the listed camperstop at Canada de Callego, followed by another at Aguilas, which we had been told about and is listed this year.
And so came New Year’s Eve! We drove further around the coast and enjoyed 2 days of sunshine on the harbour at Almerimar.
Almerimar harbour
I always like to see in the New Year in my dancing shoes, but as John was just out of hospital we settled for a meal close by the harbour, where we found, because we wanted an early meal, just one restaurant open as everyone else was opening up much later on; it was a Chinese restaurant and we both ate far too much because the food was superb, I only wish I could remember the name as a recommendation. Hello to the friendly fellow campers we met on the harbour, Dutch twin sisters Eylie and Corrie and, also, Jane and Helge from Norway, whom we hope to meet again on a Scandinavian trip.
Remembered some of the places from our messaging but was nice to read about your travels
Thanks again, shame it took so long to write it up!