Lecrin Valley Limpers

Our walk this weekend was on Saturday, and we went to the Rio Borosa in the Parque Natural Cazorla and it was spectacular. We had done part of this walk last year when we had our away weekend to Cazorla, but we did not have sufficient time to do the complete walk. This time we decided to do it as a day walk departing at 6am from Cozvijar and drove the 220km to the start of the walk. Dave, Julie, Antonia y Fernando did it the easy way they went up Friday night and camped. Mind they were still awake at 6am, when the local Cockerel announced daybreak. To make things a little easier Mike and myself split the driving, we will do this again the next time we have a long journey, it worked well and we arrived spot on schedule, these GPS devices are amazing at calculating times, even if they don’t know the easiest route through Cazorla. The walk starts by following the Rio Borosa, this is a wonderful green track that criss crosses the river umteen times as it makes its way up th

On Sunday this week we went to Pico Lopera. The peak with the fire watch tower on the Almunecar road. There was a good turn out, 17 of us, for what is an easy walk in stunning countryside. We had an early 8.30 start for what was promised to be, but never materialized,  warm day. The walk starts from the Meson Los Prado bar, it has been shut the last few times we have walked from here, but it was open this week. The tables and chairs were out and the new owner greeted us with a friendly hello. Not like the usual miserable landlords in the past, we had stopped using the bar a while back, even before it closed. We set off at a good pace, I think the leaders could not wait to get back and try out the beer and tapas. We have done this walk so many times, I think we could all do it blindfolded, but then that would spoil it because we would miss the wonderful scenery that it passes through. We had our mid morning snack at the top where we had stopped to admire the views, before

This week we returned to Restabal to resume a walk we started a couple of weeks ago but had to abandon due to torrential rain. On Friday I thought we were heading for a repeat drenching when one of the weather forecasts was predicting heavy rain and thunderstorms. Fortunately it was just the guy at the weather center who was winding me up, for most of the walk there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.   The Ayuntamiento must have heard about our problems a couple of weeks back, when a section of the path we were on turned into a muddy swamp in the thunderstorm, because this week they have started to concrete the track, so no problems here from now on, (if you like walking on concrete). The walk was not a long walk one and it needed something to raise the pulse a bit, otherwise I would be inundated with complaints that I was letting standards slip by making things too easy for the limper virgins. There is a delightful little track that climbs straight up the hillside from the river

We set a new record this week, both for the distance we walked and the height we climbed.    The weather forecast had been predicting storms for the weekend, and I had said that I would decide on Sunday morning whether or not the walk was on. At 7 am on Sunday the weather, while not brilliant, did not look too bad, OK we might get a few spots of rain but that is why we all carry waterproofs. The walk was setting off from Restabal, it was not a long one and we were never going to be more than 1 hour away from the village, so even if it started to rain we could get back before we got wet. So I issued “The walk is on” email. I was most surprised to see 19 including 3 new walkers all eager for a walk. At 9 am it started to thunder, there was a request from Cees that we go to the bar for a coffee and wait to see what happens to the weather. He always wants to go to the bar for a coffee, so as usual we ignored his request, preferring to get on with the walk and then go to t