10th July 2006 Disaster

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Dear Limper
The major high light of the week was the planned BBQ on Thursday night at the picnic site in Guajar Alto, as usual when food is on the menu, we had a good turn out with 12 turning up as opposed to 4 for the walk on the previous weekend. Sadly when we all arrived at the picnic site there was a notice proclaiming by Royal decree that BBQs were not allowed from the 31st May until the 1st of November. There was a big discussion as to whether this applied to us, obviously if it had been a truly British BBQ party we would have been exempt from any Royal decree not signed by our own Queen Elizabeth, but because of the large international gathering of Dutch, French, Lebanese and Irish, we decided to follow the guide lines and just have a picnic instead. The venue is perfect with tables and chairs laid out overlooking a waterfall. A note has been made to reconvene here at the beginning of November. In order not to waste all the BBQ food we had taken we returned to Chite for a hastily assembled BBQ which was enjoyed by all, There have been calls for a yellow card to be issued to Mr Mark Bellwood because it was his suggestion that we should hold the BBQ party in Guajar Alto, not only did he propose the duff venue he did not even turn up. Can you please let me have your views as to whether the matter should be taken further.
Because of the major sporting attractions taking place at the weekend it had been decided not to hold a walk on the Sunday, but when reports started to come in during the week that the wooden bridges on the stretch of the Rio Durcal between Conchar and Melegis had been swept away it was decided to mount a special expeditionary force to investigate if any other damage had befallen that wonderful stretch of the River upstream that we normally river walk in. So at 5pm Sunday afternoon we headed off for what we expected to be the first wet feet walk of the season, but instead we found an river totally devastated by the storm that had taken place about a month ago. Gone are all the rock pools and the rocks to scramble over, the whole river bed upstream from the waterfall just after the Aceqia end is now covered in about a meter deep bed of shale, the river is nowhere to be seen, we walked as far as the large bolder that blocks the way and did not find one drop of water. In preparation of walking in the river I had carefully packed my house / car keys and mobile phone away in a plastic bag inside my ruck sack, somewhere along the return path the sack had come open and the keys and phone had fallen out. This was not noticed until we had nearly returned to the car. A return journey was made all the way back the way we had come, no sign of anything could be found. We only had one car (unusable) and no phone, spare car keys back at Chite. So it was decided to walk back into Durcal and get a taxi back to Chite. By the time we got to Durcal it was 9pm, I had promised Ross's wife that he would be definately be home for his tea by 8pm. By now the world cup was well and truly in play and my calls to the local taxi firms fell on deaf ears. All the Chite crowd were off watching the match. In the end I found a lone Geordie electrician watching the match in Sammie's bar who magnanimously offered to run us home when the match had finished. I have never got so excited about a football match, I did not mind who won, as long as someone did and Keith could take us home. You can understand how pleased I was when they started to play extra time, and I was ecstatic when the game went into penalties. We finally got home around 11 pm. Please note our new mobile number 627021994
The walk this coming Sunday the 16th of July is a multi ability walk up Cumbres Verde. The idea is that we park at Cerro de Seville and walk out on the mainly level path along the side of Cerro Gordo with the option of returning back along the same track whenever you feel like it. For the ones who want something a bit more demanding the path proceeds around then over Gordo before returning to the cars. Please meet at the car park in Niguelas at 8am. The shorter route is classed as easy and is as long as you want, the longer route is strenuous and takes about 5 hours with about 450 meters of ascent.
Best wishes
Stuart

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