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| Nr. Valencia to El Pino - 129 miles |
An earlyish start to a
somewhat dull and cloudy day although not cold. We're moving on today
so after breakfast did a full service on the van, cleared up after a
somewhat subdued Jamie was sick (he knows we're travelling again and
we think he doesn't like being cooped up in his cage all day), paid
the lady and away. Our plan is to head south to the Alicante area to
try and keep clear of the weather system that is moving in, but first
a big shop to restock the fridge and cupboards. We soon found a big
Carrefour we've used before and spent an hour filling up a trolley.
Then out onto the main
road but we soon noticed the AP7, running more or less alongside us,
was no longer tolled so at the next opportunity joined it to get some
fast and easy miles under the wheels. We've heard that the company
that was operating the toll motorway has gone bust and the government
decided it was cheaper to just remove the tolls rather than subsidise
them. As an added benefit, of course, it has taken quite a lot of
traffic off the main roads through towns and villages. Seems this has
happened to a few Spanish motorways, although as we generally avoid
them it won't make a lot of difference to us.
Around Denia we paused
at a service area for some lunch and to exercise Jamie before putting
our destination into TomTom, who nearly threw a wobbler when he
couldn't calculate a non-toll route. Ah just ignore it, we'll sort it
out later! The non-toll section ran out at Alicante, after passing
one or two well known resorts, such as the high rises of Benidorm,
but we were turning off anyway, past the huge airport and onto the
coast road.
We actually really
enjoyed this part of the run as it passed through the coastal
mountains making it far more interesting than British motorways! Up
to now, once we had cleared our shopping stop, it had been bright but
it became very hazy with high cloud starting to mask out the
sunshine.
We were heading for San
Fulgencio where we hoped to be able to get into a camper park we used
some years ago but have never been able to since, and where we'd
hoped to meet up with our friends. So we really weren't surprised to
find it full, the two alternatives both also chokka with several vans
parked up outside, ostensibly waiting for a vacancy but probably
intending to “wild camp” overnight. Best of luck with that; last
year the police were roaming around, moving folk on. But when doing
our research we'd spotted another on one of the apps we use, about 10
mins north and which had excellent reviews so decided to give it a
try although we did have some alternatives in mind.
When we arrived there
was a “Full” sign up at the gate but, nothing ventured nothing
gained so Terry walked in and asked. They were indeed full but the
friendly French owner offered a temporary place overnight – it was
actually his own parking space but he moved his cars – and could
offer us a proper pitch tomorrow. The app did comment on how friendly
and helpful the owners were so of course we accepted!
So now we're safely
esconced at what looks to be an excellent camperstop with all the
facilities we need and at a very reasonable price – no wonder it's
popular! But we're learning that changing sites at the weekend is not
a good idea as the Spanish love to come out for the weekend, but then
disappear on Sunday night!
However we've been
rechecking the weather forecast and it's pretty clear that our
efforts to avoid the rain are coming to nothing, with heavy showers
expected here over the next 2/3 days. Ah well, not to worry as we can
survive a few days of wet.
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