The Adventures of Melvyn and Lesley
Having retired we are busy pursuing the things we enjoy
First day back in Spain started with a small run followed by setting up the pitch. It normally takes 2/3 days to finish it off and kindly the wind didn’t blow enough to go windsurfing. Jobs completed so far, outside floor down, tent up, plumbing for fresh water and waste, washing machine plumbed in and tested, WiFi set up, TV set up, numerous cups of tea drunk, hidden chocolate digestive found and opened. More of the same tomorrow.
Well, it may not be the best campsite we’ve stayed on, but we had a good night’s sleep and woke up to a brilliant crescent moon pointing out to a well illuminated Venus. Although the water had been cold everywhere else, the showers were excellent, so a good start to the day.
More excellent motorway, a little busy as we skirted Madrid but otherwise very easy driving. We had arranged to pick up the hire car at 3:00 so we hoped there would be no delays – and there weren’t. We arrived at Murcia Airport to collect our car, a white Fiat 500 at 2:20, perfect. 
Lesley followed me as I had Sat. Nav., bad move, I went wrong at the first roundabout. A small problem counting to 4 for the fourth exit. Apart from that we made good progress and were on the campsite about half an hour later.
We were saying hello to friends before we even got to our pitch, and lots of our friends, who knew we were arriving came to say a quick hello. It was good to be back.
Ferry arrived on time and we didn’t have to wait too long before we disembarked. This is our third time of doing this and with Lesley in charge of navigation we made short work of any potential sidetracks and headed on our way towards our overnight stop at Camping Pico de la Miel.
All together we drove 211 miles, an easy drive helped by the fact that the weather was excellent the roads superb and the traffic very light. The first part of the journey is through very green and luscious landscapes, undulating and very pretty. Further on and there is a definite change to the landscape, it is now much more open country side, the trees disappear and there are huge areas of agricultural farmland, a prominent crop seems to be sunflowers. At this time of year they appear to be dead and I assume they are waiting to be harvested for their seeds. 
The hills when you get to them are big, at times we are in excess of 1500m.
Apart for stops for lunch and fuel we drove straight through arriving at Camping Pico de la Miel at about 6:00pm.
This campsite is good for it’s convenient access to the historic city of Bolognia. Although the pitches are too small for our motorhome (9.25m), they let us park in the car park, which is flat and tarmac with an electrical hookup point. They also gave us a 10% discount for the inconvenience – we thought it was fine. There is a bus from the campsite directly into the centre of the city for a small cost.
Our neighbour, a musician, seem to have permanent residence and good be heard playing his rock guitar from the morning onwards, but never too early or late. We saw him in the centre of the city playing to the crowds – he was very good. Here is a little clip.
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We arrived about 5:30 in glorious sunshine. We were lucky enough to find a good pitch and were soon settled in, with chairs out basking in the sunshine and drinking a well-earned cup of tea.
As I Lay back in the sunshine reflecting on our journey and thinking about how lucky we are to be able to spend our days travelling around Europe’s most beautiful places and meeting folk from many different countries.
Lesley made one of my favourite dinners, kedgeree, and I finish the evening by reading some of Chris Evans autobiography and watching the first episode of Inspector George Gently.
Our overnight stop in Peniscola.