Lecrin Valley Limpers

Hi. I wasn’t able to go on the Sunday Christmas walk so Cees offered to organise  it, and show everyone around his village. He is always wittering on about what a beautiful place it is. I always thought he was a bit jealous of  the rest of us, the true limpers who live up in the Lecrin Valley, but, after listening to some of the people who went on the walk and seeing the photos I will admit I was wrong, it is the Beautiful Village of Velez de Benaudalla. Thank you Cees for leading the walk. Walk Sunday 27th December. Kees has asked me to write a few words about our Sunday walk. He was a bit worried that if he wrote it he would simply wax lyrically about the Beautiful Village of Velez de Benaudalla and drive everybody nuts. So! Here goes! We met at 9.30 in front of the Magnificent church in the centre of the most Wonderful Village of Velez de Benaudalla. Without further ado Kees led us up through the Charming streets of this Fascinating Village to the Nacimiento,

Summer has arrived early, everyone is back in T shirts and skimpy tops. flowers are blooming and even the local animals are walking around with their offspring. There is no snow on the mountains and it is a long time since we have seen any rain. What a fantastic winter we are having. No doubt we will pay for it with a wet spring, or when we have nothing to drink in the summer.  This week we had organised a very easy walk after a special request from Conchi. After a big debate within the group we decided to do a linear walk that necessitated driving to the start of the walk and then walking back to Padul.  We met in Padul by the kiosk and it was good to see Elisa and Jesus after all this time. They had returned from Scotland for a holiday, eager to check out if the sun was still shining, as they had not seen it for 18 months. Sadly Conchi was unable to join us as she was sunbathing on the beach in Malaga as we were tramping down the hillside.  The logistics of the w

This week we had planned to go up to Pampaneira to do a walk of the 3 villages, but, by Saturday morning the weather forecast was for temperatures of around 3 degrees and rain. Yes that is right RAIN, after months of waiting we were finally promised some, it never appeared apart from a few spots, but we did get a promise. With the prospect of walking in the rain and temperatures at near freezing I decided to change our plans and head down to Velez de Benaudalla, that beautiful village at the bottom of the hill and a way marked walk called the camera del agua.   The walk starts besides the river which we followed for 10 minutes, just long enough to warm the muscles up before the climb. The path twists and turns as it makes its way up the hillside until it eventually levels off and runs along the hillside next to a large acequia. This is the camera del agua and it feeds a hydroelectric plant down by the river. We stopped here for a short break and to admire the view of the beau

This week we had a cold start to our circular walk from Nigúelas, it was only 3 degrees at 9 am when we all met up in the carpark. We set off at a brisk pace to try and warm up, but that only made things worse. We were heading downhill to the Rio Torrente and we were moving so fast the wind chill made us even colder. It was only after we had climbed out of the valley up into Acequias that we actually began to feel warm. From Acequias the path continues along the GR7 as it climbs up the well graded path to  Cerro Alto. Looking back it was quite surreal to see the windmills poking out of the mist that was drifting up from the coast.  At the top the path meets the Nigúelas / Lanjaron track which we followed for a short distance, before climbing again on a track that takes you towards the Rio Torrente. Normally at this time of the year you have views of the snow covered pico Caballo. This year there was nothing, the little snow we have had is long gone. Does anyone want to buy a ne