If you decide to walk the E4 and you want to start in Spain, an early choice you have to make is whether to take the northern or southern variant of the GR7 through Andalucia. With no great application of science I chose the northern option. Checking if this was the best option was just the excuse I needed to return to Spain and in October, five weeks after finishing my E4 trek in Budapest, I was on my way back there with Christine.
I only had 9 days which isn’t long enough to do the whole variant. The GR7 splits into two at Villanueva del Cauche in Malaga and doesn’t join up again for 450 kilometres (at Puebla de Don Fadrique). I figured I would need at least 15 days to do the whole stretch.
To help me decide which bit to do I turned to Juan Holgado. I had met Juan in March on my second day out of Tarifa on the E4 walk. This was an amazing coincidence and a real stroke of luck. Juan had helped Michele Lowe and Kirstie Shirra write their guide “Walking the GR7 in Andalucia” and is the expert on the GR7 and all things walking in Spain. He has his own web site (www.jaholgado.com). Although we only spoke for a few minutes we struck up a friendship and Juan, through comments on my blog, advised and encouraged me all the way across Europe.
Leaving Ventas de Zafarraya and arriving at Alhama de Granada
From Villanueva de Cauche you have a northern and a southern option for the GR7/E4. I chose the northern option, which is generally described as the less developed route, because, and without a lot of evidence, I thought there might be snow on the southern route in March. I now know better and could definitely have walked either route.
In total my Stage 2 is 443 kilometres long, involves around 112 hours walking, and goes from Villanueva del Rosario through the Malaga and Jaen provinces and joins up with the southern option at Puebla de Don Fadrique where both options join before heading into Murcia.
A sea of olive trees
There are a lot of olive trees along this part of the walk. Spain is the world's largest producer of olive oil and this part of Andalucia (Jaen in particular) is where much of it happens. To be honest I got a bit fed up with olive trees.
Day one was mixed arable, not yet 100 per cent olive trees, and while it wasn't brilliant walking the trail was nearly all off-road. I stayed at the wonderful Hotel Rural Paloma which is just off the route and couple of kilometres before you get to Villanueva de Tapia (near where the route crosses the main road) - don't miss it!
The next day, a short 20 kilometre walk but now 100 per cent olives. Pleasant open countryside but olives as far as the eye can see. Villanueva de Algaidas, the day's destination looked a pretty dull town, although it was pouring with rain when I arrived. The Hotel Algaidas is at the southern end of the high street.
After the rain the walk from Villanueva de Algaidas to Rute was tricky and sticky (with argillaceous mud sticky to everything). Streams which needed to be crossed were in full flood and the route was at times very difficult to follow. This was a shame because, despite the olive trees, this is pretty countryside with the route taking you through the lovely villages of Cuevas Bajas and Vadofresno. Rute the final destination is also interesting, a centre for the production of anis, the whole town seemed to smell just slightly from the drink. I stayed at the Hotel el Mirador which was OK but lacked any Spanish soul.
Spanish breakfast at Hostal Rafi
Nice walk to the lovely town of Priego de Cordoba the route takes you along two linked valleys. Hard to find the route leaving Rute but important that you do as the route takes high up the side of the first valley and away from the road. In the second valley it's along a quiet road still annoying because there is a lovely green lane running parallel to it nearly all the way. Preigo de Cordoba is a lovely town with some amazing Rococo churches. Stayed at the Hostal Rafi, a really nice hotel with a good restaurant.
Priego de Cordoba
After a 23 kilometre walk to Priego de Cordoba I chose to do a much longer, 35 kilometre walk to Alacala la Real. Could have had a short day by stopping at Almedinilla but to be honest the walking was not that good so not that much to hold you back. Quiet a lot of road walking although at times I may have walked along the road rather than the path because I missed the route.
Alcala la Real
Stopped for half a day in Alcala la Real staying at the Hotel Torrepalma. Impressive castle towering over the town and from the top you can see the line of watch towers that marked an old border with the Moors. A short afternoon stroll took me through the Alcala la Real suburbs to Frailes with accommodation at a wonderful bar in the middle of the village, really friendly, enormous portions of food and great fun.
Frailes to Carchelejo is a big but wonderful walk, 35 kilometres and 1300 metres of ascent. Climbing steadily up from Frailes to the little village of Los Rosales your soon out of olive country and into open moorland where the agriculture is based on sheep. Climbing up over a ridge with brillant views to the north you then into a empty and seemingly never ending valley before, after several hours, climbing up again over a ridge, past some amazing wind blown rock, with brilliant views of the Quiebrajano Reservoir, before getting onto moorland again and heading down to Carchelejo. We stayed at the Mezquita de Magina Rural Apartments, whatever you do don't be tempted to walk onto the Hotel-Restuarant Oasis, its miles away.
GR7 above Frailes
Couldn't find anywhere to stay at Cambil, the walk for the next day, but the owner of the Mezquita in Carchelejo was happy to act as taxi driver. Easy walk to Cambil, a very pleasant little town, although you do have to go underneath a motorway. Recent comments on the blog suggest that the route may have got washed away in places so it might be necessary to make some local enquiries, as it was, even when we were there, the river along the valley looked a bit treacherous.
After a slightly dull walk to Cambil, the walk to Torres next day was much better. Again you get to climb up out of the olive trees, this time into the Sierra Magina Natural Park, over a pass a 1600 metres with some amazing views back to the Sierra Nevadas, and then a long meandering walk down through trees to Torres. A good walk. Stayed at the Hotel-Restaurante Jurinea which was excellent.
Albanchez de Ubeda with castle above
The walk to Jodar is a good one going through some nice countryside and visiting the lovely towns of Albanchez de Ubeda and Bedmar both of which are stop-over options. Jodar is an "interesting" place, nice town centre but the rest of the place feels poor and slightly oppressive. There are two hotels and we probably stayed at the wrong one - would try the Hotel los Molinos which is much better positioned than the Hotel Cuidad de Jodar.
Would give the walk to Quesada a miss unless you're desperate to do the whole of the GR7/E4. A lot of road walking through boring olive tree country. Gets better from Hornos de Peal to Quesada and Quesada is a lovely village with good accommodation options. We stayed at the excellent Hotel Sierra de Quesada.
Limestone cliffs in the Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y las Villas Natural Park
After Quesada you enter the Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y las Villas Natural Park, a magical place full of wild life but with a total absence of people when I went there in March. This was one of the best parts of the whole E4 as far as I was concerned and as well as deer, huge numbers of birds of prey and vultures, I got to see my first wild boar and either a wild cat or a lynx. Definitely want to go back there.
You cross into the Park somewhere between Quesada and Cazorla after you have climbed up along a forest trail. The scenery changes quickly with huge limestone cliffs looking into the park and huge views across the plain looking out. Along the way you pass ancient churches and castles before getting to Cazorla which itself is an absolute gem of a town. We stayed at the Hotel Guadalquivir which was a success.
Sticking with the route there is no accommodation on the route into the park so I walked to and from Vadillo de Castril and the hotel gave me a lift back there the following day. I'm sure there are better options if your not a GR7/E4 purist. The paths through the park were excellent, a combination of paved mule trails and more recent forest trails.
It was on the second day into the park that the wild life started to reveal itself in numbers. Usually walking high up, contouring around valleys, you're often looking down at the hovering Griffon vultures and birds of prey. It was on the second day I saw my family of wild boar.
I stayed in an apartment in Cotos Rios, a small village on the edge of the park, although I'm sure the Hotel la Hortizuela is close by but on the road on the other side of the river from the trail.
Sheep country around Pontones
Although you're out of the park the quality of walking is more than sustained next day on the trip to Pontones. It was pretty wild when I did it with snow falling going over the pass. It was at this point I saw what was either a Lynx or a Wild Cat. Pontones itself is very much a mountain town, very remote and in an area where making a living looks especially hard. The Hotel Restaurant Ruta del Segura was a authentic, old fashioned good fun place to stay.
Last decent day's walking on the northern variant of the GR7, a walk across dry open limestone countryside followed by a long descent down a valley to Santiago de la Espada. Stayed at another mountain hotel, the Hotel San Francisco.
Although I walked to Puebla de Don Fadrique there was little pleasure in it. Mostly along a sometimes busy road and a long way - would definitely recommend catching the bus. The Hotel Puerta de Andalucia is a good place to spend a last day in Andalucia (or a first day if you're walking the other way).
If you want to know what the walk felt like on a daily basis then have a look at the walk diary.
There are definitely more accommodation options if you're walking across France rather than Spain. Perhaps a similar number of small hotels but in France you also have Chambre D'Hote and Gite d'Etapes. The downside for is that you get charged by the room whereas Spain it was often by the person making it a cheaper place for travelling alone. There are also more food options and to be honest the food has been generally better in France than Spain.
Last night at the Logis in Le Vigan was the exception. Was a bit worried about their priorities when I saw the large pink toy rabbit on the bed. Initially the large number of customers in the outside restaurant, and the traditional menu, made me think we were in for a treat but the food was just awful, over cooked and really bland. I think this was the the only outside restaurant in Le Vigan open on a Sunday night and the smokers who had descended on the place were not bothered about what the food tasted like.
Not a long walk today, about 20 kilometres, but with 1300 metres of climb it was a tough one. Instead of the blazing heat of yesterday today was cloudy and humid, not ideal for a tough climb. The walk was almost completely within trees and even when there was a longer view the humidity meant that it was not very clear.
It was hard work keeping Christine moving. Walking on my own I have got into a habit of not stopping, stopping just for food once or twice a day depending if it's a standard or a very long day. Christine is a frequent stopper and constantly on the lookout for a village with a bar or a coffee place.
The first place which should have had a cafe was Aulas which was an hour out of Le Vigan reached after a steady climb up through hillside suburbs. Unfortunately the cafe was shut so no choice but to press on. A cherry orchard just above Aulas provided some temporary relief but after 40 minutes more we had to stop for a first lunch. Things really got tense when 10 minutes later another stop opportunity came up with a cafe on the side of a road the route crossed and, so soon after stopping for lunch, I insisted we press on. 40 minutes later we stopped for our second lunch and had only walked a painful 8 kilometres. My suggestion that it would be dark before we got to Esperou was not well received but I plugged her into the IPod and with the worst of the climbing done things went better. In the end we got there by four.
Aulas
Humid Weather
A lot more walkers on trail at the moment which is nice and they usually stop to ask where you have come from. A group of Frenchmen who spoke perfect English, opened the conversation by saying that they had already done 250 kilometres, so being able to respond with ' Oh really? I've just done 2500 kilometres' was the perfect putdown.
L'Esperou is, believe it or not, a ski resort with several hotels and a development of chalets which look very Swiss. Just as we arrived it started to rain but the sky is now blue and things feel a lot fresher. It's about another 300 metres of climb to the top of Mont Aigoual which we go over tomorrow and apparently on a perfect day you can see Mont Blanc in the Alps and Canigou in the Pyrenees.
Shouldn't moan as I know that not everyone is experiencing blue skies but here the heat wave which disappeared for a couple of days has now come back full force and temperatures were again up into the 30s. Surprising how much the heat takes out of you and although the walk was only 22 kilometres we both felt drained at the end of it.
Essentially the walk involved a climb out of yesterday's gorge, a walk across some classic causse countryside through a couple of villages along the way, and then a long walk down through an oak and sweet chestnut forest to Le Vigan.
Setting off it wasn't too hot a Christine took a picture of yours truly on the bridge on the way out of Navacelles. Notice that I'm now wearing full anti-tick gear.
Leaving Navacelles
The walk up the side of the gorge gave increasingly spectacular views of the Cirque de Navacelles and you can even make out the waterfalls where the "new" river route goes.
Cirque de Navacelles
I know people rave about the causse scenery but when it's hot like today the arid, desert like characteristics come to fore. Very little cover and everything baking under the sun. That said there were still lots of wild flowers in particular orchids and honeysuckle.
Classic causse vegetation
Honeysuckle
Went through three villages before we got to Le Vigan, Blandas, Montdardier and Avese, all with accommodation options, although Montdardier where we had hoped to escape the heat and have lunch was being completely dug up to lay new water pipes and everything was shut down.
Saw our first couple walking in the style of Robert Louis Stephenson with a donkey. I'm with Nicholas Crane who suggests that Travels with a Donkey is responsible for more cases of donkey abuse than other book. The donkey was keener to eat than to walk and it difficult to see where the accelerator peddle was.
Donkey abuse
After the heat a walk down through the trees was a welcome change. The local guide book describes the young oak trees as pubescent, something lost in translation perhaps. Because she'd missed out on lunch I took pity on Christine and let her borrow my iPod and she was soon waving her arms about to Pavarotti singing La Boheme.
Still hot when we got to Le Vigan not helped by the fact that the hotel we are staying in turned out to be on the edge of town and a kilometre or so in the direction from which we had just walked.
Climbing high tomorrow, over 1,000 metres, so should be cooler. We then spend three days in the Cevennes National Park which could be amazing.
Our wonderful host at the Chambre d'Hote (Le Relais des Faisses) reminded us that the causse area we are now walking through was the setting for the sinister event in Ian McEwan's novel "Black Dog". We are also getting into the countryside where La Bete du Gevaudan, a wolf-like monster, killed 100 people, between 1764 and 1767. Given that combination I'm not sure what was worst, the first black dog to start barking at us or the exceptionally hairy donkey.
Black Dog
Brilliant morning for a walk, bright, cool wind, clear blue sky, perfect fit with the wide open landscape which featured in the first half of the walk. It's much dryer here than the countryside I've been walking through since the Pyrenees and the greens have changed from spring like to high summer.
High dry plain to the north of La Vacquerie et Saint-Martin-de-Castries
After crossing a high level plain the first village you get to is Saint-Maurice-de-Navacelles which looks nice but with not as many facilities as our stop-over last night. Just after Saint-Maurice-de-Navacelles you drop into the Gorge de la Vis, a great gash across the causse.
The walk along the gorge was great, initially a steep descent all the way down to the river and then a gently undulating walk along the side. The only frustration was that the river looked very inviting and we had set our minds on a bit of river swimming, but the path stubbornly kept its distance.
Gorge de la Vis
La Vis
After walking about 20 kilometres we arrived a Navacelles which is a beautiful village complete with crashing waterfalls and a wonderful ancient footbridge. Staying here and spent the afternoon relaxing in the sun and Christine even went for a swim. Much too cold for me but I haven't been acclimatised by swims in the English Channel.
Navacelles
Bridge at Navacelles
Wild water swimming
Navacelles is also the location for the Cirque de Navacelles. A neck of a sharpe meander in the river system eventually cut through and the neck formed the waterfalls and the ancient meander the Cirque. The flat bottom of the ancient river bed is now a large U shaped hay meadow and Nacacelles sits inside the U on the island of rock next to the waterfalls. An amazing location it was declared a site of special national significance in 1943.
Christine writes: Our base tonight is 'Ammonite', a beautifully restored old house owned by a friendly Dutch family who also run the creperie down the road. Looking forward to salad and omelette tonight. John has just found the key to last night's room in his trouser pocket - our host has volunteered to get it back to it's rightful owner.
More fun and games trying to find our way out of Lodeve this morning and it turns out that the GR7 goes on a fairly circuitous route heading south before it loops back up round to where it should be going. This southern diversion was enough to confuse me and it wasn't until we had the entire staff of the tourist information office working on the problem that I accepted that the circuitous route was indeed the right one. Fortunately today was quite a short one so the time wasted didn't really matter.
After the heat of yesterday today was much cooler, cloudy to start with and then clear and windy, good walking weather.
Picked up a baguette for lunch which Christine insisted on sticking out the back of my rucksack, actually very useful for picking up wifi.
Marching out of Lodeve
Fozeires
Initially we shared the route with the Pilgrim's Way and the GR 71 and it wasn't until we got to the pretty village of Fozieres that we got onto the GR7 proper. It was then a fairly long monotonous walk up through pine trees with the monotony only broken by the occasional cherry orchard with an opportunity for cherry gorging.
Just past the Col du Melanque
After about 20 kilometres and 900 metres of climb we started to escape the trees and emerge into the causse countryside proper. I like it and after 6 days of walking through trees it's a really nice change.
Approaching La Vacquerie et Saint-Martin-de-Castries
La Vacquerie et Saint-Martin-de-Castries was a bit of a surprise, a lot more facilities than we were expecting. We are staying in a Chambre d'Hote, which doesn't evening meals but there is a smart looking restaurant in the village and we're going there tonight.
Something worrying is that I'm suddenly getting attacked by ticks, four in the last three days which compares with one in the last 55 years. I think I managed to remove all the bits but I don't really know how dangerous they are. Anyway from tomorrow I will be wearing long trousers as a safe rather than sorry precaution. If anyone has any advice on ticks please let me know.
Mi hija Hannah described me as supertramp in a tweet with reference to my all night walk, slightly double edged to say the least but it did set me thinking. My head teacher at junior school, Miss Gledhill, had a slightly unhealthy obsession with the poet John Masefield, who before George Orwell, hit the road and wrote Diaries of a Supertramp. Perhaps being bombarded with Masefield has lead me to this. In addition as a teenager I had an obsession with the pre-electric Bob Dylan (what a sell-out he proved to be) who of course modelled himself on Woody Guthrie (check the picture on first album cover) who of course, possibly not out of choice, was a famous hobo. It all fits.
To be honest the all night walk has left a bit of mark. Although it was fine at the time the memory of it is disturbing. Particularly this morning I really felt that I needed to get back from Supertramp to well resourced walker. Maybe the totally wrecked sleep pattern has given me a bit of a jet lag sensation, I'm "Lost in Translation" (which for some reason is a favourite film) and quickly need to get from Woody Guthrie to Bill Murray.
Today provided the antidote opportunity, short 20 kilometre walk to Chera with accommodation booked at other end. Had a double breakfast and got a taxi to El Rebollar. There is a public transport option but I wasn't messing about.
Not long after the start I had to cross a railway line. This can't be happening, John Masefield gets his foot stuck on a railway line and looses it and boxcar Guthrie's railway connections are just too obvious to mention. Manage to walk across it safely when just for a few seconds I think the route takes me across the High Speed Route as well, then I see a bridge and start to calm down.
After that things get better. The route takes me across fields of vines which happily are starting to sprout leaves and then through a valley into hillier country. Essentially you're contouring around the Sierra de Tejo which at the top is over 1100 metres. The route is well marked and looks used. All of a sudden in runs into a two metre deer fence. Just to get the message across the deer fence has panels of steel reinforcing laced into it, the stuff they use in concrete.
To the north of El Rebollar
Block Trail
Hidden Waymarks
Approaching Chera
Now I don't want go anywhere if I'm not welcome but after going up and down the fence looking for the please come through gate, I realise that the only way to get to Chera is once again to climb a deer fence. The absence of "welcome walker" signs are reinforced inside when I realise that someone has gone the trouble of painting over all the GR signs. Not sure but I suspect that this has something to do with hunting. Although, given the almost total absence of anyone on the walk so far, the chances of suddenly bumping into a hunter was virtually zero, the clear inference that I wasn't welcome did spoil an otherwise nice walk. I did see three captive deer but they failed to realise that I was on their side and shot up the mountain.
The deer San Quentin must have been 10 kilometres across and finally emerged about 5 kilometres before Chera. There was a open gate across a cattle grid, the gate was open because a satellite dish installer was visiting a house and had to get access. Either side of the gate were turnstiles to let pedestrians through. On the other side the GR signs started again and shortly after there was a sign pointing me down this route to El Rebollar. No idea what's going on.
In Chera the municipal auberge I had a room booked in was closed until tomorrow but fortunately there was another one in this very small town.
Chera is an interesting little town, population about 2,000 I guess. Have seen 5 bars, a baker, 2 little "supermecados" one selling meat as well, and a chemist. Non of the above look prosperous. On the other hand the road to the town has been completely reconstructed, not a dual carriageway, but high quality non-the-less. In addition to the road the immediate approach to the town has a new street lighting scheme, parking bays, bus shelter etc etc. Neither the road or the new facilities seem to get any use.
Missing my water reservoir. Particularly miss the fact that the pipe which goes over your shoulder and connects to a strap on your bag made you look you look like a serious walker and less like a tramp. Also had a certain ghostbuster, Bill Murray, look to it.
After three pretty average days today's walk was a distinct improvement. The weather was a bit fresher and the route went higher. Not a long day, the walk was only 22 kilometres, but with over 600 metres of climb I was above the 1000 metre contour for the first time for a while.
After finding your way out of Elba, walking along roads for a couple of kilometres you then go through a slightly scary tunnel underneath the main Madrid Alicante motorway. The tunnel was slighty scary because it was long, pitch black, and in the middle, mysteriously parked was a black BMW with sleeping occupants. How the car got there and why the occupants considered a motorway subway a good place to have a sleep is question I would prefer others to ask.
Although not spectacular the walk got better and better and views looking backwards in particular got bigger. Walking along forest trails you were travelling through increasingly mature pine woodlands, occasional olive groves, fields of barley and open hill sides which perhaps had been the victim of forest fires. Not a lot or wildlife after the abundance of Andalusia but I did get a picture of a bird which is a bit of a mystery. My assumption was that it was a Jay, there are a lot of Jays here, but do Jays have a crest?
View back towards Elba
Hooper
The last bit of climbing was a lot steeper than anything I've done for the last few days, made worse by the fact that Christine Durrant, who is walking with me at the moment, is a very fast walker. The stiffness in left ankle had completely gone but has reappeared in the right one. I'm a bit disappointed with the lack of advice from my medical team at home but I have been able to get huge Ibuprofen tablets which in the UK would only be given to a horse.
The top wasn't quite a pass and you had to walk for another couple of miles before the final descent into Castalla. On the way in we saw deer and boar but in strange place which seemed to be half zoo, half farm. Much preferred the glimpses I got in the Cazorla.
Captive
Castalla definitely fits with the emerging model that the more prosperous a place looks the more it's been hit by the recession. Relative to its size the extent of the development looks massive. The castle towering above the town looks completely restored, as does much of the old town centre but the huge housing development on the southern edge of town has come to a grinding halt.
Castalla
We are staying in brand new hotel, the Don Jose. Got here in time for lunch and well set up for a longer walk to Alcoi tomorrow and the big game.
Nice steady walk today, perhaps a bit low key, but maybe what was needed to get my ankle back on track. It's still a bit swollen but I'm not worried about it any more. What the "injury" has brought home however is how tight my schedule is, how vulnerable it is to anything going wrong, and how fed up I would be if anything did go wrong. I really want to do this walk.
Apart from being the perfect walk for my ankle the walk did not provide a lot to write home about. Miguel kindly took me back the petrol station at Venta Roman and had made me a great pack lunch. Weather was nice, not as hot as yesterday, good weather for walking. 26 kilometres to Pinosa, a very gentle climb, then across a wide valley, another gentle climb, and then a walk down into Pinosa. Just before you get to Pinosa you cross the border from Murcia into Valencia.
Heading east from Venta Roman
The boundary with Valencia
After my last attempt to point to what I thought was an unusual plant, which two people then dismissed as a daffodil, I'm a bit nervous about highlighting what looks like a cross between asparagus and a lupin. Is this interesting or just another display of my ignorance?
Lupin?
Almond and other fruit trees have to a large degree given way to vines which have still to emerge from their winter slumber. Given what they have to produce by September/October then they really have to crack on.
Vines in April
Pinosa is a small town (circa 1100 population) a significant proportion of which are British. The Bed & Breakfast I'm staying at, just outside the town, is actually British owned and the landlady is currently standing for election to the local council. Evidence of the collapse of the Spanish property market is everywhere in Pinosa.
Pinosa
Endless empty flats
The really big news is that for the next couple of weeks or so I have a walking companion, Christine Durrant, and logistical back-up, provided by Christine's husband John. Some of the walking in Valencia is a bit remote, accommodation difficult to find, so this should work really well.
John was able get the Tottenham Wigan game on his laptop, given the game on Tuesday, 0-0 was entirely predictable.
Venta Roman is a good place to go to on April Fools day because it's the place that doesn't exist. The Murcia Mountaineering and Walking Association reference it as an end of stage point but apart from that reference it doesn't exist at all on the web. It took me days to work out that it was a petrol station so no chance of any accommodation there.
So I'm staying two nights at the wonderful La Linda Tapada and Miguel picked me up at the petrol station at the end of the walk and will take me back there again tomorrow as I head out of Murcia.
The beginning of the walk, for the first hour or so, was along the road. I joined up with walk from La Linda Tapada but it would have been the same if I had set of from Cieza. My leg was really sore when I started, had been painful all night, and I was getting a bit fed up. Walked slowly and after a while it eased up and in the end, although it is a bit swollen, it was not really a problem.
The most distinctive feature of today's walk was the heat. By the time I finished the 26 kilometres at about 3.30 it was 29 degrees. It was fairly low down, and I'm just a few hundred metres of altitude would have made a big difference, but the sun was incredibly strong and it's only April the 1st.
Having walked past the out of town industrial estate and got onto path proper the countryside matched the heat. Incredibly dry, almost desert like. There were some ancient terraces, and a derelict farmstead, but it really looked like agriculture had been abandoned on this stretch. The best thing about this bit of the walk were the views back to the Almarchon, the mountain I walked around yesterday.
To the east of Cieza - almost a desert
Distant view of the Sierra del Almarchon
Eventually the pine trees reappeared and fruit trees and vines started to become the order of the day. Crossing the final pass and heading down to the petrol station I was suddenly in fruit tree alley, a huge expanse of trees, some of them of under different coloured plastic, obviously a really important centre for growing fruit.
Had a beer in the bar near the petrol station while I waited for Miguel. A brand new dual carriageway was under construction behind it, you can see it in the picture, but work on it has postponed. Unfinished blocks of flats and houses are everywhere but it's the first piece of public infrastructure I seen stopped in it's tracks by the Spanish economic crisis.
Venta Roman - Abandoned motorway in the background
This was a brilliant days walk with a slightly unfortunate sting in the tail. Scheduled as a 35 kilometre walk I managed to turn it into something in excess of 40, adding some unnecessary and nasty road walking to a trip which would otherwise be on very nice forest trails.
The route essentially takes you along the side of a fairly spectacular sandstone ridge, probably an outlier of the sandstone scenery I was was walking through a couple of days ago, which runs between Calasparra and Cieza.
Managed to get away from the hotel in pretty good time and by 9 had walked out of town and was walking straight into the sun along a route which contoured along the southern side of the ridge. This went on for about 15 kilometres with great views of both the ridge and the plain to the south. This is clearly an area where fire is a serious hazard, workmen were cutting the undergrowth to reduce the risk and further along you could see why, the trees along the whole hill side for several kilometres have been burnt down.
Earth scorched on Sierra del Molino
About half way along you arrived at the Embalse Alfonso XIII, a reservoir where the river running north through a gorge in the ridge had been damned. It was beautiful spot and, as usual, I had it all to myself.
Embalsa Alfonso X111
Heron at Embalsa Alfonso X111
After continuing along the side of the ridge for a few more kilometres you arrive at the undoubted star of the show, the Sierra del Almarchon, a mountain which stands out in really spectacular way, a sort of mini Matterhorn, or the Spanish version of the mountain in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. First impressions are good but actually it gets better as you get to the north and east of it - a really special mountain.
Sierra del Almarchon
Looking back all the time at the mountain you then have to cross a sort of sand bowl, perhaps the debris from the mountain, with deep ravines, before getting back to the contour walk again, this time walking along the northern side of the ridge.
Eventually it's a steep descent from the ridge down into Cieza and, after a very hot day, I arrive there at about 5.30. I had fixed up stay at La Linda Tapada, which is on the other side of the Rio Segura and out of town the north west. Miguel had offered to pick me in Cieza but having worked out where it was on Google Maps the night before I had decided to walk. Two mistakes, it was a lot further than I thought and Google Maps doesn't show all the roads. Instead of the second right it should have been the third right. So at about 7, the battery on my IPhone just about gone, I'm trying to explain to Miguel, who doesn't speak a word of English, where I am. This was a bit stressful. Eventually, and after failed attempts to send him a photo, I get to speak to his son, who is in another place, and we agree that I backtrack to bar and send him the name of the bar. At the bar there is a sign to La Linda Tapada which I had missed. As the crow flies I was about 300 metres from the Hotel and I eventually get there at about 7.45. It's lovely by the way, fantastic home food, and real vegetables.
I have picked up an injury by the way, some tendon or something on the front of my left leg. Very sore but haven't twisted my ankle or anything. I think is because Gareth Bale has picked up an injury in the run in to the Real Madrid game.
