Oldies On Tour

Monday 2nd October 2023

After a very comfortable night in our new location in a quiet street adjacent to some undeveloped land where we could run the dogs and the beach across the road with many signs, “No Dogs”, all was well; no visits from officials!!!!!

After a leisurely lie-in and breakfast we headed to Balsicas, there is a large golf shop there that sells particular polo shirts Christine rather likes and wants to get some more.  We also plan to have a menu del dia on the way back.

The “Great Golf Company” is on an industrial estate so parking was fine but we didn’t want to leave the dogs in the heat so Christine went in whilst I parked in a shady spot and again opened the windows and settled down; this could be a long wait!!!!!   But, hang on, here is Christine walking towards me empty handed, why??   Maybe she forgot my credit card!!, but no; Oh dear they didn’t have what she wanted😩😩😩.

So lunch next though it was too early; we “had budgeted” much more time for the shopping, so after a short break in the local petrol station, filling everything up we headed to “restaurante Agrodolores El Mirador”, part of a large fresh fruit and other produce distribution centre; it may sound like a working men’s cafe but the food is jolly good; value for money and a “destination”.  

Though we arrived around 1300hrs, too early for the Spanish and the main restaurant hadn’t opened yet, but as we had the dogs we sat outside, very comfortable and cool in the shade.   We used to frequent this place when we lived here, and was always happy, hence our decision to return.  Today was no exception, a first course, a second course and a desert with half a bottle of wine each was excellent; no change though we thought the price may have altered, but hey, it’s good to be back here.   Eventually I went to settle up and the food was a similar price, €12 but they charged an extra €5 for the wine: Covid has a lot to answer for but we were happy compared to U.K. prices!!!!!

By now we were really hot so headed to the beach carpark we had been expelled from yesterday; well we were only banned from stopping the night!!!   We had a good time on the beach and the dogs had a “ball”, well several thrown into the sea!!!

So after all the day’s excitement we headed back to El Mahon, to the same place as last night and settled down.

Sunday 1st October 2013

Another good night but by 0700hrs, 8hrs since the pooches were last let out, Christine took them out and headed down to the beach to watch the sun come up; I waited in the   MH.    After yesterdays rush to the carpark, this morning was relative quiet though I did see a Garda Civil drive in, come past us, go round the car park, and out again.  Soon after that    Christine returned having watched the dawn come up with two “worn-out” dogs, a good job as they will be bored today; a day of visits. 

After breakfast and having cleared away we were just about to head off when this official car with markings similar to the “Local Police” drove straight up to us and out jumped this officious looking uniformed woman and she opened her mouth and a tirade of Spanish was let out and at this point, looking dumbfounded I said sorry, slow down please I only know a little Spanish.   She started in English telling us no one is allowed to stop overnight here and there are signs around saying this.    I apologised and said we were just leaving but you could see in her eyes she was hell-bent on issuing me a fine at which point, the driver got out and sort of took over the situation and accepted our apologies knowing we were about to leave and that was that; evicted from our nice convenient overnight stop, with a beach🥵🥵🥵

Our first port of call was the “El Cafe de Africa” for morning coffee, naturally with a Soberano; we normally use the “Panaderia” but that has closed down, so met up with Frank there, whilst Sue was on the golf course.   It was good to see him looking so well and we had a good old “chinwag” but left things on the table as the four of us are out to dinner later in the week.

Our next stop was Mary’s for water before heading down to the “Restaurante Asia” the Chinese in Pilar de La Horadada; always a good “value-for-money” place to eat and again we were not disappointed.

We said our good byes to Mary then headed off to Torre de La Horadada to meet up with Steve and Daffers;  the first friends i made when I bought a house in their road circa 19-years ago, and still friends!!!   It was a lovely afternoon catching up and we also met up with Wendy and David, the couple who bought my old house.

Having been evicted from the “Salinas” we had to find somewhere else so headed to El Mahon, a small place by the sea where we remember from our time living here motorhomes being parked up for the night.  This is in an area waiting to be developed but the streets are already in place and sure enough two motorhomes were already there, so we joined them and settled in for the night

Saturday 30th September 

In spite of the two blokes waking us up in the night, all four of us had an undisturbed night; well done doggies👍👍

We are not going anywhere today, it is a day of cleaning and relaxing, though the car park is filling up earlier than usual, locals getting their spot for the day.

We had lived in and around this general area and walked numerous dogs around this “Regional Park” over the past 18-years but have never wondered why these salt pans were started, why they are here and their history, so today I’ve done a little in investigative work and I am “gobsmacked”, I had no idea “salt” had played such a part in history other than preserving food before refrigeration and clearing ice on the roads.

Salt extracted from the sea has been produced in the “Salinas del San Pedro Pinatar” for a long time; Excavations in front of these beaches in 1945 discovered ceramics dating back to the Carthaginians, even before the Romans arrived around the 2nd century BC and were used for keeping salt.  Apparently there were many uses for this salt, two in particular around that time, one was to produce “Garum” (a fermented fish sauce condiment made up of macerated Mackerel and preserved in the salt) widely used in the Mediterranean area from the time of the Phoenicians to after Roman times.   The second reason vast amounts of salt was needed around that time was the ritual of “Punic Salt” (conquerors spreading salt on the defeated’s land) which “apparently?.” carried on well into the Middle Ages by the Spanish and Portuguese.  

Salt from this area was discontinuous until the 13th century when King Alfonso X ensured that it was harvested regularly and used exclusively by the monarchy; as a result, the salt flats belonged to the Crown until the 19th Century.  During these six centuries, the Crown had the monopoly of the exploitation and sale of salt, fixing and regulating prices (known as the “salt pond”) and becoming one of the major sources of taxes.   This continued until the law changed in 1879 and the production was commercialised.   Sometimes one never really knows what’s around them and this area is a very good example of that.

After our “chores” we headed onto the beach, found a quiet spot and exhausted the dogs with the ball being thrown into the sea before returning for a refreshing “gin and tonic” and a special meal; Duck breast with all the trimmings and one of our bottles of Burgundy from Chusclan.  I then settled to watch Fiji beat Georgia 17 – 12 and Scotland thrash Rumania 84 – 0 before heading to bed.

Friday 29th September 2013

We had a very comfortable night at our “new” campsite in-spite of the “midnight visit” by the rubbish-bin truck, and a few midnight dog walkers.   We were also surprised at the number of early risers exercising their dogs.  Today we have a long awaited meeting with “Telivision Technology” a company in Benijofar, to collect our new tv “black-box”, ours being 5-years old plus, it is beginning to give us some trouble and I can only collect; still it’s worth the effort!!!

After another session in the dog exercising compound we headed off and arriving at the appointed time to collect said object.   Nothing else planned for today so decided to head to Mil Palmeras to do a “recce” as we are meeting up with Lee and Sarah at Oasis after which, driving is a BIG no-no.   Whilst heading that way we decided we should top-up with gas, and as we don’t have a gauge after about a week, it is “prudent” to top-up.   Christine opened “my LPG.eu” App and was furiously looking for somewhere nearby when driving from the AP7 on the Torrevieja road, low and behold a garage selling it!!!   So far so good, but I didn’t have the correct “nozzle” for their pump and when I asked inside for one, they hadn’t got a clue what I wanted.   After a few minutes with two or three cashiers looking at the array of nozzles before them, including mine, someone suggested asking their boss for help.   A few moments later this “chap” arrived, scooped up the correct one and we headed to the pump together with the cashier as he wanted to “train” her in the use of the LPG pump and of course he filled Rosie for me in the process; win-win, what a helpful young man.   This particular garage wasn’t even on our app, why not I ask???

We drove around the Oasis area of Mil Palmeris and found a secluded road with an open gate to some scrubland, ideal for us and the dogs so stopped there for lunch, check the area out so-to-speak!!

Today we noticed the temperature on the roadside display had gone down from 30-degrees to 29-degrees, oh dear, winter is setting in😂😂.

Back at our regular “overnight stop” stop amongst the salt pans, it was now beach time, today we are taking a couple of chairs as there is no rush and it will give the dogs even “more” exercise!!!!!

After dinner we played crib then I watched New Zealand trounce Italy 96-17; another miss-match: also, being a Friday I suppose, “our” car park is unusually busy, what’s going on????   And it got worse, at 0140hrs we were woken by the dogs barking, not to go out but to tell us someone was about, that’s a first, well done Dogies.   Annoyingly it sounded like a couple of “blokes” having an argument and though they were about 25-meters away, in the quiet still of the night, their voices carried.   I didn’t know what time they stopped and buggered off as we closed the window and went to sleep

Wednesday 27th September 2023

After a quiet, undisturbed night we woke in this big carpark, all on our own, wonderful and let the two dogs out to do their business; we’ve definitely cracked it!!   Today we start the big “catch-up” in Campoverde.   Apart from catching up with friends etc., we have other important things to do, such as visit the dentist and get Christine’s nails done not to mention haircuts, but firstly we’re enjoying our carpark environment whilst having breakfast.

Driving through Pilar and up to Campoverde, not having been here for a year, we notice the changes, and there were a number that perhaps living here one misses.   

We had arranged to meet Paul Butterworth for coffee this morning and though it was great to meet up again, it was very sad as Paul had very recently lost his wife Sharon after a valiant fight against cancer.   We then met up with Mary Sturgess and had lunch at Juanita’s before returning to our “new” favourite campsite.

Again we could park in the same position where the dogs can just run out, do “things” and get back in, but first the beach.    Today the temperature is 30-degrees, so a trip to the beach and a swim in the sea is essential and again the moment the dogs were “unleashed” they were in the sea closely followed by Christine and I. 

Having been out to lunch today supper was a bowl of fruit!!! Followed by Christine taking the “two” out for another beach walk, but no swimming!!!

Thursday 28th September

Our plan for a good and undisturbed night’s sleep backfired; around midnight there was some unwanted activity in the car park so I closed the window rather noisily which unfortunately disturbed the the dogs who didn’t settle and about 0100hrs uncharacteristically decided it was time to get up and wanted to go out.   Once they had been let out they were “full of beans” and wouldn’t come back leaving poor Christine outside trying to “round” them up.   To compound the issue we set the alarm for 0700hrs as we had to be back in Campoverde in time to join the Crib group.

We rocked up to Jim and Hazel’s and joined in with the crib; it was as if we hadn’t left!!!   It was good catching up with everybody and even met a couple new crib players.   It is nice to know the weekly crib get together is still prospering under Jim and Hazel’s guidance; we will be back next week👍👍

After lunch and a trip to Mercadona we headed to meet up with Martin and Jackie, our old neighbours, again it didn’t seem 5-minutes since we said good bye last September.  Visiting them means driving is a no-no so planned to stop in the new part of Campoverde by the park rather than drive back to Lo  Pagan.   Whilst there  ChristIne went to “George’s” the Village vet to organise the dogs worming and complete the necessary paperwork to get them back into the U.K. 

After a very convivial couple of hours we left, tomorrow they both have hospital appointments so couldn’t drink and had early starts; hopefully we’ll meet up again before we leave.

We headed to our overnight stop and whilst Christine sorted dinner I took the dogs to the special “dog park” adjacent to us.   The mission is simple; “wear the buggers out”!!!!

Tuesday 26th September

Up early after another undisturbed night’s sleep, the secret is exhausting the pooches by the end of the day and throwing the ball into the pool certainly did that!!  Where Martin lives, it is on a very narrow, no through road on the side of the mountain with a big drop one side and overgrown individual “rocky” building plots on the other. When we arrived we drove Rosie in knowing we would have to reverse her out as there is nowhere to turn her, another reason to start early!!!

At the agreed time we reversed out, Martin marched down his steps and we were away.  Alicanté airport is just over an hour away by car but in Rosie and with people heading for work, probably a little longer.

A good run to the airport and we dropped Martin off in plenty of time to catch his ‘plane.  We now headed towards Guardamar, we seem to remember motorhomes parking up there and besides we know a “cracking” restaurant called “Canada” that do excellent “Menu Del Dia’s”; Christine even found a free place to park-up, win-win.

We arrived at the site, it’s not free, not in Guardamar, and nowhere near the restaurant and besides the site reminded us of the one we spent a night at in Peniscola, so we headed off.  After some consideration we decided we would head to the car park near Lo Pagan just outside “Puerto San Pedro” alongside the beach, amongst the San Pedro salt-pans. 

We arrived early afternoon and although the car park was fairly busy, we found a place to  stay; result!!   It was another hot day and the dogs had been cooped up for many hours so the first thing Christine did was take them down to the beach where they immediately took to the water and ran around like a couple of lunatics, but enjoyed themselves.  Later the car park thinned out so by “deduction” we assumed the beach wouldn’t have so many people on and headed on down.   Again the dogs took to the water but this time Christine and I were dressed accordingly so went in with them as well; we all had a great time and the sea was nice and warm, this was followed by a walk along the beach.

Back in Rosie Christine cooked a roast dinner tonight, quite a remarkable achievement in such cramped conditions.   Whilst enjoying the roast there was a beautiful sunset, we’d forgotten about these!    After dinner another walk along the beach; (we want another quiet night) before a couple of games of crib then bed at which point we turned ‘em out again for their last opportunity, and by which time they were “dead on their feet”, hopefully another good undisturbed night’s sleep🤞🤞🤞