Walk 3 April 2016 Sierra Manar

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After last week's disaster of predicting a cold and wet weather walk, and ending up walking in temperatures of 25 degrees dressed in our winter woolies, I have spent the whole week polishing my crystal balls, and this week the predictions were spot on. A valuable lesson has being learned, keep your balls clean and well polished.
Now I will admit when we met at Cozvijar it was spitting a bit but, as our walk this week was starting from the Cañadas urbanization 10kms away, I was confident that the sun would be shining by the time we arrived. Antonia obviously did not have any confidence in my predictions because, when we met up with her, she was sat under an umbrella putting her boots on and her poor husband Fernando had to carry it with him the whole day.
 The walk starts by following a pleasant, undulating path along the side of Sierra Manar with views up to Veleta. Dave and Martine were setting the pace, unfortunately for them they did not know the route.  We would let them get ahead a few hundred metres and then turn off on another track. After 4 km the path turns uphill and you gain most of the walks ascent in one short burst. Fortunately Mike was at the back rescuing and revitalizing the ones that fell by the wayside with his celebrated magic pills. One minute you are looking at a helicopter medivac and the next Mount Everest would not be a problem.
 We stopped at the top for lunch at the Vulture cave, this is a large slit in the ground with comfortable seating and a natural windbreak. It was while Dave was looking for his sandwiches that he discovered a rock in his rucksack. Some joker had slipped it into his pack in an effort to slow him down. After we were all fully recovered we took an alternative path down, past some Orchids that were just coming out, through the forest and back to the cars.
 It was an enjoyable walk and the sun shone on us all day.
 For refreshment we went to the petrol station on the motorway before heading round to Mike and Sheila’s for tapas in the afternoon.   

We walked 10.2 km, climbed 482 metres.

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