The book must be wrong!

Today’s walk started in the town of Gata de Gorgos, which must be famous for basket-ware judging by the number of shops selling rattan products.  We seem to have adjusted to Spanish time so we didn’t start the walk until 1.30pm, which allowed us no spare time if we went wrong!  It was a 12km walk with a long haul up to just over 400 metres and then down again.  The walk took us over a dry riverbed and then through terraces of ancient olive groves.  The sound of barking dogs followed us, but it wasn’t long before we left it behind.  At one point the path bore no resemblance to the descriptions in the book and, as I said, we had no spare time for mistakes.  After much pondering and retracing of footsteps we decided to follow the main drag only realising at the end we had missed out one of the minor peaks, which was just as well as we didn’t get back until it was almost dark!  

There's green in them there hills!

Here on the Costa Blanca everyone wants to be by the sea and who can blame them with gorgeous seascapes and the mild climate.  But all these people need somewhere to live.  With all the urbanisation there doesn’t seem to be much green, but look more closely and seemingly remote footpaths can be found.  Today we did walk number 7 in the Cicerone Walking on The Costa Blanca book – Castell de Granadella.  And what a gem of a walk it was.   Rated easy to moderate we weren’t expecting to scramble or cling onto chains embedded into the cliff and to feel so far from civilisation.  Thank goodness this hidden valley remains protected by Javea Council from the pernicious onslaught of urbanisation. 

          

Five Miles From Home And Hopelessly Lost!

Magic mushrooms?

This weekend we visited the church at the small hamlet of Salvetat-des-Carts for a Concert de Noel.  The church was full and everyone sang with gusto.  There was mulled wine and cake afterwards.  Whilst parking the car we had noticed a footpath sign so we went back today to investigate.  We had the Najac IGN map, which showed a route past the church, down into the valley and which seemed to link back to the footpath we had seen.  I like a circular walk always hating retracing my footsteps.  Unfortunately the path soon petered out.  The views from here were so different from normal and we soon felt disorientated.  Several barbed wire fences and gates later we found ourselves on the wrong side of the fence in a field full of cows.  Not wanting to disturb them we spotted the road in the distance and decided to head for it.  This was easier said than done as we stumbled down slopes, through brambles and over and under barbed wire fences.  We even had to ford a stream, well we would have done if it hadn't been dry.  Eventually we stumbled onto the road looking like we had been dragged through a hedge backwards - well we had!  We followed the road uphill for half a mile where we were rewarded with a view of Najac - one that we had never seen before. And from there we took a well signed footpath back to Salvetat-des-Carts without having to climb over any more barbed wire fences.

The way was blocked!

Najac