20 November 2022 - Listen to the birds
Miles driven today = 114
Total Miles to date = 3,596
We've seen a good few sunsets on this trip but this morning we witnessed our first sunrise through the windscreen at 07:48 precisely... then we went back to bed for our morning brew.
In order to keep our average mileage on track for our homeward journey we decided to head for Valencia today. We had the option of following the coastal route via Benidorm and we had hoped to pop in and visit our friends Boris & Jo in Javea, but unfortunately they aren't at home this weekend, so we took the A7 north past the Sierra de Mariola instead.
We climbed all the way up to 600 metres and all the way back down to sea level again. The scenery was as impressive as ever and a lot greener than I anticipated on the higher ground where there is a considerable amount of forestry. The view over the town of Canals as we emerged from a tunnel through the mountains was particularly impressive.
As we dropped to lower altitudes the ripening orange plantations took over again and then ultimtely large industrial areas as we approached Spain's third largest city of Valencia. A couple of sharp right turns then saw us heading back down the coast for a few kilometres to the Albufera National Park.
We pulled in at the Devesa Gardens Resort which is basically a dinosaur themed, family orientated holiday park. It's actually really well appointed and pretty good value for €18 a night with hook up included on the ACSI card. As the crow flies we are about 500 metres from the lagoon and a similar distance from the beach, but what we didn't initially appreciate is that to get to either on foot involves walking an awful lot further.
The Albufera is one of the largest and most important wetlands in Spain for wildlife, being home to as many as 250 different species of bird, of which 90 breed here. Apparantly in the middle ages the lagoon was 10 times its current size but the majority of it has since been reclaimed for use as rice paddys.
We thought we would go and see the beach first so we found a rough path through the woods which appeared to be heading in the right direction. After what seemed like an age we crossed a concrete cyclepath but the path we were following continued and so therefore did we. Then the path split. One branch seemed to end up in a bog so we followed the other which got progressively less well defined until ultimately we ran into a fence and had to turn around.
So we went back to the cyclepath and followed that for a good 20 minutes until we finally came to a crossroads which led us down to the beach. By this time we were already starting to wish that we had gone to the trouble of getting the bikes out of the garage.
But the beach was lovely and even on a Sunday there were only a handful of people there. Looking north we could see the buildings and dockyard cranes of Valencia in the distance.
And to the south is El Perello, where incidentally it is reckoned you can sample the best paella in all of Spain.
We found ourselves a couple of logs (one of which was inexplicably partially painted pink) to rest our limbs and work out how we were supposed to get from there to the lagoon. Well it turns out you can't easily. Despite the fact that we could clearly hear an absolute cacophony of birds, the only way to actually get to see them would be to almost walk back to the campsite and then do a 2 mile each way march along the main road. It was too late to get the bikes out by then and approaching beer O'Clock so we gave up and decided that we will make a short diversion to the lagoon tomorrow before we continue our onwards journey.
Comments
Post a Comment