Aguadulce

24^th April

Camping Roquetas

The motorhome was really rockin’ last night, no it wasn’t my birthday or xmas it was a really strong wind. Woke this morning and the van was covered in sand. We arrived at the site yesterday and walked into Roquetas de Mar, wasn’t all that impressed looked too urban. Strange as this was a resort that was described in the early 80’s as a Moorish town of quaint old houses?

Although its windy its still hot so today we walked into the nearer town of Aguadulce, a much nicer place that’s more up market with good bars and restaurants and an attractive waterfront. We found a bar to watch tonights Liverpool v Roma match and its only 800 metres from the site.

The site is ok but unfortunately its surrounded by all of the plastic greenhouses that blight this part of Spain. This ‘plastic’ covers hundreds of square miles and makes the countryside unattractive. Still the farmers need the money and we need our tomato’s. Getting ready to be off t’ match tonight. “Up for Cup”.

San Jose

22nd^d April

Dionne Warwick had to ask the way to find it and she “was born and raised” there, but we found San Jose quite easily as we’ve had a couple of short visits here. Its tucked away in the Cabo de Gata desert area where they made many of the spaghetti westerns of the late 60’s early 70’s. A real Spanish resort that has kept most of its original fishing village charms. All of the buildings are painted white. We intended to stay a couple of nights and driving here with the temps hitting 28c I thought I might get my first sea swim in, but a steady wind became stronger and it stated to cool. So after a tasty meal overlooking the sea we thought we might push on tomorrow if the wind remains.

The actual campsite was quite small with good facilities. The price per night was about 26 euros but if you used it as a camper stop and arrived after 7pm and departed by 10 the next day it was only 18 euros and that's what we chose to do. There were a  lot of vans wild camping in various parts of the town. The large car park that actually had caravan signs up in one section looked the best bet. I like San Jose but its questionable whether you could stay for long there so after one night especially with the weather looking hot, dull and windy we moved on the next day to Roquetas de Mar.

Mazarron ( Bolnuevo)

Mazarron

We’d previously visited the site at Bolnuevo in 2013, we liked it then but we like it even more on this visit. It’s an exceptionally good site right next to a beach with a separate part for dogs. The entrance is adorned with flowers and a large water feature. In fact everywhere you go there are flowers and water features at this site. The main toilet block is almost a homage to a Busby Berkeley musical with a long water pool running through the middle with dancing water fountains that flicker with the sunlight, at times you half expect the leg of a synchronised swimmer to emerge from the waters.. To get to the shower section you walk up a majestic wide staircase full of cascading plants and flowers. A unique facility.

The site entrance is also just 100 metres from the area where you’ll find most of the bars and restaurants. Mazarron itself is about 3-4 miles away. A clean and tidy town with lots of large supermarkets.

We also like the fact that a 15 minute walk takes you into a national park with quiet beaches and bays, vehicles are not permitted here so its relatively quiet. We’ve been here about a week and intend to stay another 4 nights. Its nice to have our awning up with the chairs and table permanently in place.

This is also an interesting time as some of the Spanish arrive to set up there units for the rest of the summer. We’ve been observing a few over the last few days but our next door elderly Spanish neighbours have really ‘gone to town’. They arrived about 3 days ago with a large older Hobby van. They positioned this and then put up an awning. Then the next day a large fridge was delivered with a cooker. Then the proverbial ‘kitchen sink’ arrived and was plumbed in to the mains. The best bit was when they fitted a full pvc door frame and metal door to the front of the awning, no zipping in and out for these guys!

The sun going down on Bolnuevo beach.

La Manga

Wednesday 11^th April

Great result last night, a 2-1 win against city in the champions league gave us a 5 -1 aggregate result and a place in the semi's.

La Manga. 

As a child I was frequently told by adults not to poke the fire, scribble on the front of a new school exercise book and not to alight from a moving bus. Like most kids I let dogged determination and curiosity get the better of me and ignored these introjects. So when we were told by various other motorhomers never to go to Camping La Manga we felt we had to go despite the warnings that we would be robbed, abducted by marauding Berbers in their longboats or even worse conscripted into the almost ever present Camping and Caravan Club Rally. The latter would see us subjected to weeks of scrabble, dominoes, boules and a weekly quiz. All at the premium rate of £30 a night.  However avoiding all of these we spent a safe night at La Manga. It wasn’t as bad as people told us but it wasn’t great. It’s a huge sight of over a 1000 places. The distance from the front gate to the back gate is over a kilometre. There are swimming pools, tennis courts and lots of other activities to keep you amused a bit like a run down Butlins. The pitches were large with taps and drainage on each one and the showers and toilets were ok but a little dated. Its price at 17 euros a night seemed reasonable. However it was its isolation, quite a distance from the actual La Manga strip/town, that really made us want to stay no longer than one night. Also the evidence of quite a few uniformed security guys and frequent visits by the police did little to reassure us but instead left us wondering why such security was needed. So we said goodbye to La Manga and headed for Mazarron.

The sites beach looking towards La Manga

Looking down the main 1 kilometre drive to the front gate

Monday 9^th April

Arrived in San Javier yesterday, Sunday. Its on the Mar Menor, a large lagoon off the Med. just north of La Manga. Had a quick look around looks fab. Here's the news for my camping, caravan and motorhome friends. ..we are on Camper Park La Ribera, its a 200 pitch camper stop with 3 toilet/shower/washing machine blocks, a cheap but good value bar/restaurant. Pitches of a good size with electric hook up, All the usual water points and drop off points..price 10 euros a night with 'lecky'. If you stay for 7 days or more its 7 euros a night. Definitely no mud (How's that Norma)?

Tuesday 10^th April

Another gorgeous day down at Santiago De La Ribera, sat and had a 2nd breakfast at the Hotel Ribera. Beautiful and sunny. There is a military air training base nearby so as we sat in the sun we were treated to a free display by the Spanish equivalent of the Red Arrows. Probably moving on tomorrow off T'match tonight. "Up for Cup"!

April 8^th

We spent two really enjoyable nights at Camping Imperivm, Villajoyosa. What a site, built in 2016 they've really put some thought into it. Wide avenues for turning, water and drainage on each pitch along with tv hookup which gave you the main uk tv stations. Spotless toilet block but the jewel in the crown was the restaurant. We ate both nights there with the quality of the food first class. Only drawback was the Camping and Caravan club rally. Loads of English. All ok apart from a group of about 10 who went into the bar and made their way through a repertoire of about 70 songs, they were banging on tables and were that drunk they could only remember the first two lines of every song. We just moved and sat in a quiet part of the restaurant. So sad to see 70+ year olds behaving like that.