14 November 2022 - Seeking a quiet beach

Miles driven today = 30

Total Miles to date = 3,186

The strong winds of Saturday all but disappeared yesterday and so too did the sound of the waves which filled the van.  As a result the road noise became a lot more audible, whish wasn't an issue in itself until the locals all started heading off to work this morning at 7am.

We had pretty much decided that we would be moving on today anyway.  We are booked into a campsite near Granada on Wednesday and Thursday and we will start to make our way home from there on Friday, so until then we still had 2 more days to enjoy the coast and not have to worry about driving any great distances.  

We continued to follow the coast hugging N340 but once clear of Nerja the coastline became more mountainous with warnings of "Curvas Peligrosas", which I always reckon sounds a bit like something Harry Potter might say when he's waving his wand about.

We picked out the 3 places furthest to the east from the 18 strong list I created before we left Ronda.  The first of  these was a paid aire just outside Almunecar.  It was supposedly only a 4 minute walk from the beach but it was on a very steep hill and surrounded by apartment blocks so we scrubbed that and carried on our merry way.

Our second option was Camping Playa de Poniente which is on Playa Granada, about 5km from Motril.  

It's a €22 ACSI site, very quiet apart from a few long term snowbirds.  An English couple opposite have dragged this huge 5th wheeler, with wind-out extensions, all the way from the UK.  They stay here for 3 months every year and obviously have a big international social thing going on with their French, German and Dutch counterparts.  A number of them were playing petanque when we arrived.  It's bingo on a Saturday.

The resort of Playa Granada itself was like a ghost town when we drove in and there are a number of Mary Celeste restaurants along the strip.

The hills which tumble down to the shore here give a spectacular backdrop but the beach itself isn't the most attractive.  A broad stretch of grey, gritty sand.  The rather industrial looking port of Motril stands at one end so we walked in the opposite direction.

A few people were lunching in the odd restaurant which was open and the occasional isolated couple sat on the beach so we did likewise and fell asleep on the sand.  We'll probably do the same tomorrow once we've got what should be the final bedding laundry session of the trip out of the way.

One thing we did notice when walking back to the van is how flagrantly people seem to ignore signs which prohibit motorhomes.  We have wild camped on this trip but nowhere which has prominent signs like this.  Admittedly it was on a piece of waste ground which is probably only used as an overflow carpark at the very height of the season but I'm still not sure I would have the bottle even though we did see the police drive by and turn a blind eye.  Maybe we should put on our big boy pants tomorrow and save ourselves €22!

15 November 2022 - Playas de Motril