Thursday 19 January 2017

Vera to near Malaga - 184 miles

The rain abated and the wind dropped but it was still cold and grey, and the rain had left the surface of sand covered with gravel very soft – one van almost got stuck getting off his pitch. But we had no problem and after our usual routine and stopping off to pay our dues we headed out, being directed to go out via the entrance as the exit road was too muddy.

Our only plan today was to get some serious miles in so we wound our way back to the A7, set the cruise control and enjoy the scenery with gradually improving weather. We don't use motorways normally but as we had travelled the alternative before and found it very good but very tortuous, we needed to get on. We were now entering an area of intensive under-cover cultivation with thousands of square acres of plastic, looking just like the sea – or a lot of snow!

It's plastic greenhouses!

Hilltop castle at Salabrena

After a couple of hours we needed to refuel so turned off the main road at Salabrena, with its hilltop castle, and found a fuel station. We had also wanted to stop for lunch but there was nowhere suitable and after taking the coast road for a while decided it was a waste of time and jumped back onto the A7. Bren spotted a service point on Nellie, just off the motorway at Nerja, so we turned off, only to find it was just a service point on a very crowded garage forecourt. However we found parking on a service road outside Lidl, just down the road, so stopped for a bite.

Back up to the motorway and, almost unbelievably, there were our friends Derk and June at the top of the off slip road – we couldn't have planned it any better and the odds on this happening must be astronomical! So back to Lidl for a quick chat then we led off to find an aire about half an hour away. They had driven down from north of Madrid this morning, through heavy snow showers, so didn't want to travel much further, which suited us too.

Unfortunately it was full; no matter there's another a few miles further on – which was full too! A Brit told us he had seen some wildcampers along the road to Malaga with some space left so we thought we'd go and have a look. Basically it is parking on a bit of spare land for the beach but there was already about 15 vans there and we just managed to squeeze into a couple of spots still vacant. This should be okay for one night, although we are quite close to the road, so cuppas, a chat then tea.

We have agreed that we'll head to Estepona, where we met up last year, a full facility site and hopefully stop 3 nights so we can get properly sorted before heading off to Algeciras and Morocco.