Lecrin Valley Limpers

It was touch and go this week whether we would manage our autumn colours walk from Pitres  before the forecasted first heavy rains of the winter swept in.  It was not our scheduled end of the month big walk, but timing was critical to get the best of the colours, so it had to be this weekend.  We had arranged to meet at Beznar, well all except Cees, who, for whatever reason known only to Cees, thought Cozvijar would make a better meeting point for a trip to the Alpujarras. He rang me at 09.00 to see if the walk was cancelled, as he was the only one there, the other 16 of us were at Beznar. I don’t think Ford had designed the Transit to go at 200 kph but it only took him a few minutes to drive to Beznar. To my friends at traffico he didn’t know what speed he was doing, his speedo was broken.  Distance wise it is not too far to Pitres, timewise it takes a long time to drive the 45km, particularly when there is a procession of coaches, all making their way to Pitres.  

This week, we had the first of this years  autumn colour walks, which started from Nigúelas. It was cool on the car park at 9 am but we had a hill to climb, don’t we always. We would soon warm up when we started climbing. First though we had to walk across to Acequias which involves dropping down to the Rio Torrente, I have only once seen it living up to its name and that was in 2006, and it’s not due to flood again until the 18th September 2021.  We joined the GR7 long distance footpath leading out of Acequias, heading for Istanbul, not our destination as we had only a short walk planned this week. Dave and Julie had decided not to join us this week, preferring a lazy Sunday in bed instead, so Mike took the lead. Now normally he prefers to walk at the back, just tagging on behind everyone else, but with Dave’s position at the front vacant, he took the lead and charged off up the hill, leaving everyone in his wake. Poor Jim went A**e over T*t and ended up floundering abo

The weather forecast for Sunday this week was not promising, wind, rain, and cool temperatures. It was the kind of forecast to make you want to pull the covers up and go back to sleep. By 6 am Sunday morning the rain had passed over, it was still cold and windy but that was not going to bother us as we were going down the hill to Guajar Faraguit, always a good valley to walk in when it’s cool on the hill. Mind, I was still surprised to see folks turning up at Beznar in their summer walking gear of shorts and T-shirts. I had my fleece, coat and scarf on, much more in keeping with the 8 degrees the car was saying. Even Jan and Martine had long trousers on.  After driving to Faraguit we set off walking up the hill and it wasn’t long before Elsa acquired a new dog, he followed us and played with Floppy the whole walk.  I don’t know if was all the exertion of climbing up the hill, or wether the temperature was actually rising, but we were soon stripping off our coats and fleec

What a fantastic day for a walk, clear blue sky, not a cloud to be seen anywhere all day, perfect walking temperatures. This week was our big end of the month walk, as it turned out it was not quite as big as advertised, but it was still a great day out.  The walk started from the Puerto Lobo visitor centre in the Húetor parque natural, we had arranged to meet Mari Carmen there but, unfortunately, she had gone to the wrong place. So after waiting a few minutes for her we set off for the trenches, a sad reminder to all those who lost their lives in the civil war. The walk continued on to the Cueva del Gato, an unusual name because I can’t imagine any self respecting cat living here, there are no beds, sofas or any of the on demand services required by a cat. After a short break we continued down to the lowest point of the walk. I think some of the group were hoping I had had a change of heart and that it would be a downhill walk for a change. Sadly this was not true be