Monday 4 February 2013

Time to move on. We decided early on that we would like to visit Gibraltar so our general planning has this included. We had also heard, however, that taking the van across was usually a load of hassle so we thought we would just walk across and use the bus whilst there.

So from El Puerto de Santa Maria we took the coast road further south in brilliant sunshine, although it was very windy, stopping off at a Lidl to top up supplies again (because we have limited storage space we are tending to shop every couple of days - there are plenty of supermarkets about).

Barbate

Just before Barbate, whilst travelling through a Nature Park, we stopped at a picnic-type parking place which was the starting point for a 7km coastal walk - and also made a nice wild-camping spot, as evidenced by 2 French vans parked there.

On checking the map we discovered that it was off this very coast that the Battle of Trafalgar was fought (the point you can see in the photie is Cape Trafalgar) on 21 October 1805

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Trafalgar


Continuing along the coast we were eventually forced to turn inland to avoid a National Park. As we headed towards the main road we were confronted with a valley full of literally hundreds of wind-turbines, all in lines and all spinning merrily in the strong wind. We bet people around here don't pay much for electricity!

Our pitch at Camping Rio Jara

Our route was taking us to Tafira, which is the southernmost point of mainland Spain. As we were in no rush and there were several campsites along the road, we changed our minds and checked them out, finally deciding on Camping Rio Jara which is about 3km NW of Tafira. This medium size site (150 pitches) was almost empty so we had our choice, finally choosing one with sunshine all day long but reasonably sheltered from the wind and booking in for 3 nights.

In the distance, North Africa

And it was from here that we had our first proper view of the coast of North Africa across the Straits of Gibraltar.

Rock of Gibraltar

Walking down to the beach and turning to look east, we espied a mountain looming up over the horizon.

The Rock of Gibraltar.

Our next stop!