Walk Sunday 4 January 2015 Moclin

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Our walk this week continued with last weeks theme of closed castles and coffee. After last week's major disappointment when the star attraction on our walk, the castle at Salobrena, was closed for renovation I thought we would visit  the 14th century castle in Moclin, it had a major renovation 3 years ago.  It was bound to be open.
We are having some superb weather at the moment, cloudless blue skies but bitterly cold nights. What was needed was some vigorous exercise, firstly to warm up and secondly to shift the excess weight acquired over the last few weeks.
The walk started from Los Olivares, a small pueblo below Moclin, far below. We didn’t take the usual marked route to Moclin, I thought that was too easy. Instead we walked through Olive fields in the direction of Tiena, it wasn’t long before we were shedding our coats, hats and fleeces on the inclined path. We continued the climb up to a lookout point where we stopped for a breather and refreshment. The path then continued up into Moclin and here Mike would have been proud of me, we stopped for coffee in the plaza.
I checked with the barman about the castle being open and he assured me it was, so refreshed and with spirits high we set off again uphill to the castle. At the entrance to the castle there was a gate across the path and it was shut, but miraculously by leaning on it I discovered it would open. We continued the ascent up to the castle keep where we came across another barrier, this one would not yield to a lean and it was obvious that reconstruction work was still taking place.
It’s amazing the renovation is taking longer than the original construction took, and they will still only have a broken down old castle.
It was worth the climb just for the views over to the Sierra Nevada, they were stunning. Fortunately the castle was only one of many highlights of this walk, so without one word of dissent, well none that I heard, we headed off for the cave paintings.
What is truly amazing about these prehistoric paintings is not their grandeur, they appear little more than kids drawings, it is that they have been here for 5000 years, just painted on the side of the rocks,  I have trouble getting paint to stay on my walls 5000 hours.
We continued down to some picnic tables where we stopped for lunch. Fernando got quite excited when he thought he had spotted a Cabra Monte sat on top of a rock staring down on us. We examined it, we even got the binoculars out, but because it never moved we decided Fernando needed a trip to the opticians because it must be a stick or an unusual shaped rock. Jan was also not convinced by this conclusion, and set off to climb up for a closer look. It did finally move when he got to within 20 metres of it.
The path now dropped into the steep sided valley of the Rio Velillos, we had been walking in T-shirts but down here it was freezing. On went the jumpers and jackets, hats and gloves. The plants and the path were covered in frost. No one hung about, even the ones a bit scared of the suspended boardwalk and rope bridge were eager to cross it and get into the sunshine again.
The walk continued down past wild Iris and alongside the river back to Los Olivares.
In the village we stopped for a beer before making our way home.
It was a superb day out, the best walk so far this year, not a cloud in the sky. A pity about the castle but there is always next time.     
We walked 11.9 km and climbed 601 metres.

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