Walk Sunday 16 October 2016 Albuñuelas windmills

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The autumn rains came to Spain with a vengeance last week, summer is well and truly over and the daytime temperatures have dipped down to 25 degrees. We even had snow on the Sierras.
 Our walk this week was to the windmills above Albuñuelas. We met at the carpark and then drove up onto the ridge for the start of the walk. Since the last time we did the walk they have concreted the road which has made parking difficult, we ended up abandoning the cars at a cortijo.
 Setting off I did not need to consult the GPS as we have done the walk a few times before and I know the area quite well. After a couple of kms we came to a junction I did not recognise. It was time to look at the GPS, and yes, we should have turned off 1 km back. All was not lost though as the good track we were on did lead to where we wanted to be. After another couple of kms we joined up with our original track, which we then followed.
 Over the years we have been walking in this area fences have started to appear, and yes, one was now blocking our route. After a quick search we found an easy diversion and once again we were soon on our original track. In fact we will use both of these new paths in the future, as it makes for a better route and we weren't lost as Conchi had suggested, we were merely investigating new tracks .  
 We had a short break before resuming the climb up to the windmills. A few weeks ago Ursula had asked if we could do the crystal walk up by the windmills again, but I could not remember ever finding a calcite crystal mine but, sure enough, she found some magnificent specimens.
 After lunch at the top of the hill we started our descent back to the cars. They were still safely parked at the cortijo.
 There was no tapas this week, instead we went to the bar in Albuñuelas, even this was not a simple procedure as I thought we had lost two of the group along the way. Five of us spent 20 minutes wandering around the village looking for them only to discover they were in the bar with the rest of the group and on their 3rd pint of beer.

We walked 15 km and climbed 601 metres

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