Monday 4th March 2019
It was good to see Andy for the few days he was with us and he enjoyed his stay too. The only downside personally was a hastily performed parking manoeuvre at Alicante airport when we picked him up that resulted in me wounding the car on an unseen metal post. Doh!
We eased the pain with a very nice meal in nearby Catral at the Kambalache Asador Argentian Streakhouse. Excellent steaks and good wine, coupled with very good service. We highly recommend the restaurant if you are in the area.
A combination of the remarkably reliable fine weather, a large amount of inertia on our part, Andy’s visit, and the shear ease of staying at Marjal means that we have been here 31 days. That’s the most we have stayed, by far, anywhere on the tour. We both felt the need to move on.
Last year we had passed, but did not visit, Guadix, a town where many of the houses are built underground. Therefore we decided to head that way again. Not finding a Camping Card site nearby we chose one near Granada, Camping Las Lomas in Güéjar Sierra.
Towing Kilometres – Today: 327 Cumulative: 28,964
The bulk of the route was on smooth Autovia, toll free motorway, that we had used last year, although in the opposite direction. All very easy towing save for a few very steep sections that reduced us to 70kph in third gear. Approaching Granada the satnav & Google maps both suggested turning onto the GR-3017 toward our destination. Kim did notice a longer route around Granada which was showing a similar ETA but I thought ‘take the short route, how bad can it be?’ 🙂
It was bad. Very steep uphill & downhill. Very narrow at times. Kim was deprived of her confidence boosting white line in the middle of the road for many kilometres and then we entered Beas de Granada where the road led us through here! Very fortunately we only met one wide vehicle coming toward us and we spotted him from some distance and waited at a suitable passing place until he had passed.
A few kilometeres short of the campsite we joined the ‘proper’ road that climbed and weaved its way up toward and beyond the Canales reservoir dam. The site sits above the reservoir and has fine views all around. We received a warm welcome and were quickly set up and visited the bar terrace for a calming cerveza or two.