18/2003 - Camping Construction Site
21st March 2004 - Costa Blanca
Estimados Amigos,
The weather when we were at Cuevas Mar, near the caves-town of Cuevas de Almanzora, hotted up considerably so we decided to stay there a couple of days on our journey back up towards Barcelona. There was a good, wild beach a short distance away - through to the back of the site past the stonkingly huge Winnebago slewed across the only possible space into which it would fit (side slide-outs AND at least three integral awnings, plus it was towing a 4x4 Range Rover type thing on a trailer - now there's long!). Out the back gate, along a footpath crossing a field, out into the edge of some sandy pine woods and onto the shore for a lovely long walk and paddle. Looking South we could see down towards Mojacar where we'd stayed on the way up, and had such good beach combing, and north along the coast towards Aquilas and Cartagena.
Thus rested for a couple of days, (it's an exhausting life we lead as you know!) we plunged on, not wanting to be lulled into a false sense of security about how much time we had in hand before Jane and Averil, Jeni's sister and partner, arrived at Barcelona for their Tour of Inspection. It's a heck of a way back up there - we still had nearly 400 miles to cover - but had left ourselves enough time to have a couple of one-night stop-overs and hopefully still the chance to take the feather duster round the Lorry in preparation for Jane and Averil's visit.
For part of the journey we retraced the route we'd come down some weeks earlier - the almond blossom was almost over but the leaves were bursting forth on the fruit trees; lots of orange blossom was now out (you probably know about this curious and wonderful phenomenon where there can be both blossom and ripe fruit on the citrus trees at the same time) and this time the Penon d'Ilfach, the shark rock at Calpe, was bathed in sunshine rather than shrouded in an almost ominous mist as it was when we'd last seen it. We'd hoped to make it up to Valencia for that night, but ran out of steam some distance before and headed for a Camping down near one of the beaches.
Now, Dave admits that Jeni has a better memory for the geography of where we've been and the place names, which he maintains is as much about being able to pronounce the place-names more accurately as the fact that she is Route-Mapper in Chief (and nine years younger than him and consequently with more youthful brain-cells!). This seems to be why we have fallen into the routine of giving the Campings / places we've visited nick-names. Dave looks blank if Jeni says 'You remember when we were at Moraira / Guardamar del Segura / Roquetas ?'. However if she says 'You remember when we were at Kamping Killer Katerpillar with Dave and Pat / Camping Pristine Poocher where we met up with Shirley and Alfredo / Camping Keep-Out near where we had lunch with Mo and Jim ?', it's instant recall. So now, if we need to remember this particular night's stop on the way up the coast, we just have to talk about Camping Construction Site!
Of course winter's the time lots of the sites get to do their refurbishments, repairs and so on. Accepted. But you'd kind of expect a planned approach, wouldn't you?, fencing off an area at a time, perhaps even screening it off, working on one shower block at a time, so your happy Campers could use the others without stepping round buckets, piles of bricks and tiles or heaps of shovels and pick-axes. That's what you'd expect, isn't it? Well, even bearing in mind this is the easy-going, deliciously tacky-round-the-edges Spain, you'd kind of think they might make an attempt at that. Not Camping Construction Site! Here it was something of a pot-pourri of facilities - in one block the loos were immaculate, obviously brand new, spotless, but the adjacent washbasins were still unplumbed (the pile of taps in the corner nearby was a bit of a give-away). However, if you popped over the path to another block you could find new, fully functioning sinks galore (but the loos were roped off - you get the drift). By being prepared for an extended sortie, it was more than possible to find everything - just at a variety of surprising corners of the site.
Sitting having a cup of tea, we looked out of the van window and were charmed by the light of the lowering sun over the neighbouring fields of orange trees, heavy with blossom. Looking to the other side there was a somewhat different spectacle of cement mixer, piles of sand and bricks, half covered by tarpaulins, and features that strongly suggested a war zone.
Then the crowds started arriving. First a large, multi-generational family who we initially took to be relatives of the charming young owner/manager we'd met on our arrival. We thought maybe they'd come to see how the refurbishment work was progressing. Lot of hand-waving, ebullient discussion, pointing (at the direction of the sun, the externally frayed-looking facilities blocks, the layout of the pitches) and then they moved off in a gaggle. All went quiet and we resumed our restful reading. Noise levels increased. We looked out again and there was an even larger group behaving in a suspiciously similar way. Hmm, big family he's got. They moved off after a while and the first lot came back, closely followed by what looked like a coach-load of earnestly discussing Spaniards. The thing is, as many of you know, Spanish people always look like they're having fierce arguments when they get together like this - maybe, we thought for a fleeting moment, that's why the place is in this state?! The family come a-visiting, a dispute breaks out, then next thing you know that's another shower block gone to the dogs! But then you see they're all smiling as they talk over each other, wave their arms encouragingly and just keep turning up the volume.
We concluded that, being Sunday evening, this might be a kind of 'open day' for people who wanted to pitch their caravans long term for weekend and holiday use. And since in Spain afternoons really get started at 5pm or 6pm, this was definitely the afternoon-shift visiting! We presumed that families were weighing up the possibilities once the refurbishments were complete, although, to be honest, the inconvenience of the odd concrete mixer or missing wall in the facilities didn't appear to be of major concern.
Anyroadup, it added a few giggles to our evening before we settled in for a serious round of Boggle after our meal. We've been asked to report on the state of play in this department since a number of people have expressed concern that we've not been Boggling on such a regular basis during our last busy few weeks. Well it's nail-biting, we can tell you. It's 4 sets to 3 in Jeni's favour but clearly Dave is making up lost ground. It's 5-all in the next set so all to play for! Jeni is convinced that Dave has adopted a new strategy by asking for a couple of games of Rummikub first (like a game of rummy but with tiles instead of cards), then waiting until she's starting to wilt and whipping out the Boggle. Jeni has a propensity to sleep on the tip of a pin when she gets tired, so there she is, nodding off in the middle of a game and Dave acts all surprised when she only has 4 words on her list and he has 15!! Evasive action is required, Jeni thinks - perhaps bouncing in with the Boggle when she takes Dave his early (?!) morning cup of tea?
The next day after the eccentricities of Camping Construction Site (which you may be amused to know was near Piles - though of course you're not supposed to pronounce it that way!), we managed to get ourselves tangled up in the centre of Gandia on the way out to the ring road, but eventually - via that all important supermercado stock-up stop - managed to get ourselves out onto the autopista as we'd decided to do a good long blat and get some kilometres eaten up. As motorways go, it's not at all a bad route with plenty of hills, fruit-groves and occasional swoops down towards the sea, and it's certainly a less lorry-infested route than the toll-free, almost parallel N340.
Jeni was keen to have our other one-night-stand on this part of the journey on the l'Ebre Delta, a large flat promontory sticking out 20 kilometres into the sea, and apparently formed by silt brought down by the River Ebre. It sports reed-fringed lagoons, beaches backed by sand dunes and a large part of it is a nature reserve which boasts bird-life galore. We're told that at least 10 per cent of all the water birds which over-winter in Spain and Portugal come here, and it's one of only five places in Europe where Greater Flamingos actually reproduce. (We do, by the way, also have a vacancy for a Twitcher in Chief in Team Fruitbat as well as the previously mentioned Geologist vacancy, since we so often see amazing birds and, even with our book, fail to adequately identify them. Oh, and applications for Team Astronomer can also be considered to enhance our night-time star-gazing ... )
So, on this our fourth passing by of l'Ebre Delta, we actually took the road down onto it. The Eastern half of the kind of arrow-head shape is called La Cava, the western half Jesus i Maria, and most of the land as you drive onto the delta is given over to agriculture, including rice paddies. Remember we said it was very flat and sticks a long way out into the sea? Yes? So what does flat and sticky outy mean, do you think? Yes, quite right, WINDY. Windy, windy, windy and then it got windier the further we advanced towards the sea and the nature reserve. Trucker man grappled personfully with the wheel as VeeJay was buffeted by the wanton winds; Navigation Queen was having her (at this point silent) doubts about the wisdom of suggesting this diversion; then we reached a crossroads. As we slowed, a particularly vicious squall hit us, broadside. Smack!, as Veejay juddered alarmingly. "Jesus i Maria!" we both cried in unison, very loudly, performing a perfectly synchronised reading of the appropriately placed signpost at the junction. Even our desire to commune with all the Greater Flamingos on the Iberian Peninsula didn't outweigh the dread we felt at camping on the windy beach wondering if the Lorry was going to go over. (Definitely shades of our pre-Christmas Bad Case of Wind at Roses, if you were with us then - not an experience we'd actually choose to repeat!)
So instead of proceeding straight on for the nature reserve, we turned left and headed, as steadily as the violent winds allowed, back to the safety of solider ground and gentler breezes. Shame, but it'll go back on the list of places to return to when the weather's less unpredictable. We consoled ourselves with (what else?) a re-write to our current favourite tune from 'Oklahoma!', and you'll not be surprised to hear it went along the lines of 'Oh, we just drove over the Windy Delta / The Ebre Delta ain't got no shelter!' [repeat refrain ad nauseam with increasingly hysterical cod-southern American accents!].
So, having been thwarted in this attempt, we decided to head straight for Vilanova, another hour and a half or so up the coast. At least this would give us an extra day in which to do our chores before taking the train up to Barcelona on Wednesday to meet our incoming visitors. And another treat was in store for us at the Camping, as we knew that Beardy and Ma B, Mike and Della, friends we'd made on our previous visits to the site, were also going to be there on their way back down from France. And even though they refer to us as the Barmy Fruitbats (wonder why?!) we still like them lots.
We caused a minor international diplomatic relations incident by asking a Danish Caravanisting couple to please move their car from the pitch opposite Mike and Della (see? see? It was only one Bulletin ago that the British folk tried that one on us too - these caravanners taking up two pitches - we'll start writing to the Caravan Club magazine if they're not careful!!). It was three days at least before even a degree of entente cordiale was restored and we starting exchanging 'Good Mornings' - and that was just with Beardy and Ma B! No. Seriously. We did worry about our neighbours who didn't ever seem to be very Happy Bunnies (the connection with our arrival isn't lost on us). We were troubled by a possible link between apparently sombre moods and his seemingly permanent wearing of both a belt and braces. Including maybe on his pyjamas - we suspect so. Does this, we wonder, perhaps reflect an innate pessimism? If you live in terror of the untimely descent of your trousers, and have to take such stringent measures to prevent same, does this echo other deep-seated fears in life??
Meanwhile Mike and Della did that immensely comradely act and Put The Kettle On whilst we were getting our little pitch sorted out for our week's stay. We compared notes about what we'd been up to since our last meeting five or six weeks previously. Then Mike and Dave compared beards. Beardy, as his name suggests, sports luxuriant facial growth and he was gently encouraging about Dave's early-onset whiskeriness. However, it must be said that at this stage Dave has much to strive for, and the sub-text of the 'show me yours and I'll show you mine' session was that it would be some time before Dave was likely to be in the running for 'Best in Show' or shook off the nickname 'Beardling' !
The following day we devoted to pre-visitor van-cleaning and other domestic chores. We've probably said this before but it is rather satisfying to be able to do a really thorough clean (including mucking out alien life forms in the fridge, and in the vegetable and fruit boxes we keep outside) all in the space of 2 hours. Or 3 hours if Jeni's really buffing the bathroom to a high Thetford Plastic Cleaner sheen and dawdling over getting every mark off the bathroom mirrors. The outside of the van's another story, but at least the inside cleaning isn't a day-long marathon. We probably have to clean from top to bottom more often, given that we inevitably trail in bits of the great outdoors and perform all our living in a relatively small space, but Team Fruitbat now has it down to a fine art.
This particular day as well as an exhilarating muck-out, we also had a major cupboard rearrangement as we were starting to revert to the 'Please mind your heads when opening the overhead lockers' scenario, post-travelling, where we were starting to cram things into unsuitable cupboards. Not ideal unless wearing a hard-hat. A really fundamental review and revamp followed, resulting in much more sensible places for pots and pans, the creation of 'Port Plastic' (Puerto Plastica) for all those gorgeous little plastic containers and their lids, and 'Carbohydrate Corner' (with the part-baked rolls, bread department, savoury biscuits etc.) - how sad is all this?!
Della reckons, and we're with her on this, that firstly rearranging the cupboards and secondly moving the van round so the windows and doors face a different way, are the Camping Caristes alternatives to moving your furniture round in a bricks 'n' mortar type home!
We aim to inform, entertain and reveal those little mysteries of motorhome life!
But perhaps we're getting into the realms of Too Much Info here, so on that note, as we look forward excitedly to Jane and Averil's imminent arrival, we'll simply say 'hasta luego!' and be back soon.
Abrazos fuertes,
Jeni y Dave
xxxx