22 November 2022 - The Catalan coast

Miles driven today = 60

Total Miles to date = 3,759

We've covered at least 100 miles on each of the four days since we left Granada and the vast majority of that distance has been on free motorways and dual carriageways.  So we decided to drop the pace a little today and reacquaint ourselves with an old friend, the beach hugging N340 trunk road.  

This took us on the coastal side of the Sierra de Montsia hills, which we coud see clearly from Peniscola yesterday, before giving us great views across the huge, flat agricultural area of the Ebro delta.  Then it took us inland to higher ground for a short while before depositing us back at the coast, where we started looking for somewhere to stop.

The first place we had pencilled in fitted the bill perfectly.  We are parked up right next to the beach at Camping Cala d'Oques.  It's €19 a night without hook up.  They wanted another €6 for leccy but all of our batteries are fully charged so we don't need it.

We are a short walk from the small town of L'Hospitalet de l'Infant.  The beach in front of the campsite is quite stony and has areas roped off to protect ground nesting birds, including, according to some handy info boards, the Kentish Plover.

L'Hospitalet de l'Infant is so named because they built a hospital here in 1344 at the behest of the child ruler Pedro of Aragon and Anjou.  The building still exists but we didn't get round to walking far enough into the town to see it for ourselves.

Instead we strolled South West away from the town and along some rather fragile and rapidly eroding cliffs.  A little way along we stumbled across a large and completely deserted resort with accompanying nudist beach.

It was a bit chilly for anybody to be wandering around in their birthday suits so we dropped down to the beach without too many concerns about stumbling across any overweight middle aged Germans with their meat and 2 veg on display.  

The light has been fantastic for the last few days and today was no exception.

But, as I said, it has been relatively parky.  Pity us, it hasn't got above 15 degrees all day!  Cold enough for Lisa to dig out some of the winter clothes, which, thus far, have been vacuum packed and stored in the otherwise superfluous drop down bed in the van.

However on the plus side we can now use the oven in the van without cooking ourselves as well, which is just as well because we still have the persistently gusting winds, making barbecuing nigh on impossible.  This is a regular favourite at home.  Stuffed aubergine with spuds and sweet potato.  It would have been veggie but for the late addition of some local chorizo, and even included some wild rosemary which was foraged during our walk to the beach a couple of days ago.

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