Ciao, adios, cheerio, toodle-oo and toodle-pip

Sunday 25th January 2015 to Tuesday 27th January 2015

 

Platje D’Almenara, Nr. Sagunt, Valencia

N 39.73480 W -0.18351 (sshhh!)

 Free

 

❌ EHU ❌ WiFi ❌ Shower Block ✅ Free ❗ ✅ Close to beach ✅ Clean ‘new development’ environment in a peaceful capacious location. Good for a longer stays (proviso: WiFi/mains power sorted!) – no problem setting up outdoor chairs ✅ Parking is tolerated, 3 German MoHo’s appeared to be ‘set-up’ here for the winter (one with disengaged car/trailer) and 2 Belgian vans joined us later. ✅ Dog walks along the prom and on the beach ✅ Water supply about 1km away ✅ Grey waste in road drainage system, just yards away ✅ Black waste in the road sewerage drainage system. just yards away (use after dark!)  ✅ Supermarket a short cycle ride away ✅ Bar/restaurant at the edge of the car park (not always open) – further bars near the supermarket   🏁 A good location, found whilst exiting another rejected disappointing excuse for a 21st century nearby camp-site that, like many, had an appealing façade masking a gypsy interior.

Back on the road again

Side window view from the wilding spot

and from a few yards further out on the beach …. the view north ….

…. and south ….

The same view the next morning

Tilley after her early morning ‘dipping a toe’

Pebbles and froth

The staff of life ..

Part of the prom, the land on the right fronts the beach and is a designated protected area for rare flora and fauna

Another view of the prom

Twernt’s wilding spot, the lit prom is just a few yards beyond. Looks like the tree was planted by a bent Valencian politician, don’t know which one but there are a lot to choose from

We could have (and wanted to) stay longer (all winter would have suited us at this location!) but without WiFi and PC juice we moved on after 3 days/2 nights – destination Peniscola

The swan-song picture of our trip – the sun is setting over ‘aired-up’ motor-homes here at the ‘Stop Go’ site in Peniscola. ‘Twon’t be long before Twernt follows suit.

Well, it’s time to move on folks.

Our winter trip has been a success – before we set out there was much that was unknown to us and our overwhelming experience is that the reality has been better than we had imagined.

The prime aim was to escape the British winter, and, having experienced what southern Europe has to offer, we are converted!

Wintering in Spain? Long may you run!

It’s a tired cliché ‘that folk are all different’ and one element in our character is that there is v.little appeal for us in ‘exploring’ other cultures, landscapes, historical ‘palaces’, et al, when our core ‘respect’ lies in pan-theistic origins and an acceptance that man’s occupation of this universal ‘blip’ named Earth, amounts to being no more than a ‘Universal Triviality’ – we enjoy ‘Reality’ (awe and wonder of the natural state of what is), we give a nod to what was, but ‘pigeon-hole’ it where it belongs.

I therefore don’t have the patience to spend my time delving into, or reading about, that which ‘bores me silly’ – all I can see is wasted lives and wasted time creating stuff that has no purposeful role in matters of greater importance. Plus, I love our family, our dogs, Neil Young, Derby County and a myriad of other stuff – proof that the cliché is correct – we’re all different!

We’ve had a few hassles with our chosen mode of travel but it’s been very much as Pirsig said, “The test of the machine is the satisfaction it gives you. There isn’t any other test. If the machine produces tranquility it’s right. If it disturbs you it’s wrong until either the machine or your mind is changed.”

When we’ve lost ‘tranquility’ with our machine (Twernt), we’ve fixed it.

That which has ‘disturbed’ us will be changed for the next time around.

Some wise geezer or other said that “There is nothing permanent except change” and another, equally as wise geezer, said that “Ignorance is always afraid of change”.

We had hoped that Twernt would last us 2-3 years before needing to make changes, well, we found the flaws and our many ignorances don’t include a fear of change!

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We have monitored daily temperatures down here since we arrived at the beginning of October last year and two key regions always appear at the top of our list of 5 locations.

The best temperatures are in the Andalucia (Costa del Sol) followed by Murcia.

We therefore intend to head down to the Casares area for our second winter escape.

For now, we will return to the UK, we may prepare and sell Twernt over the coming months and we may buy a caravan and tow vehicle for our next trip down.

Blog-wise, this is my last post as I want to concentrate my keyboard/mouse usage on getting the on-line business re-started.

I will continue to update the ‘stats’ pages until we return to the UK and may possibly re-open this blog once our next trip is started – it may be with Twernt or it could be with a caravan and tow-car – probably called ‘Twill’ – ‘Twill stay in one place whilst we use the tow car to get out more!.

We’ve made some brilliant new friends through ‘Twernting’ and we look forward to seeing them all again soon. There’s a connection that we share with them as we venture forward towards the inevitable.

Finally, when I started this blog it was intended only for keeping our family and friends in touch with our movements as we travelled – it has become much more.

In just over 5 months there have been over 33,000 hits on the blog, over 240 followers from more than 60 countries – THANK YOU one and all for checking out this ‘blog-on-the-webscape’.

We hope that your times are all that you want them to be – we’ve had the best of times over the last 5 months and we look forward to repeating it in a more chilled-out, ‘pensioner-friendly’ way.

In the meantime we shall just live ……………………………………. (hopefully!) ………

Peace and biscuits to everyone.

Roy, Amanda, Shakey & Tilley.