Lecrin Valley Limpers

Can I start by offering my apologies for not going on the walk this weekend, and for cancelling the tapas at our house, the Mrs threw a wobbly and ended up in hospital. Hopefully by this coming weekend she will be a lot better and the planned walk will proceed as arranged. A big thank you to Mike who was volunteered to lead the walk, and to Kees for taking the photos. Walk Sunday 28th July What a wonderful morning is was for a walk; another perfect day in Andalucía. Thirteen merry souls set off from the Dilar River car park and headed up towards the Ermita Vieja. Everything went marvellously for the first ten minutes or so. It was when I spotted a path that turned off to the left that things started to go a little array. I had been looking for such a turning, so we happily trotted along it. A good few minutes later the path petered out into a lovely shady glen, perfect for afternoon tea of cucumber sandwiches and champagne. But we had a walk to do, so we turned around ...

We were back to our normal Sunday walking this weekend and we went to the Alpujarras. The walk started above the village of Soportujar and followed a path in the forest as it climbed up the steep sided Rio Chico valley. With only a small group of us walking this weekend we were able to walk at a good pace, and we soon arrived at the highest point of the walk. It seemed a shame to be heading downhill, especially when there is a section of the Sulayr path along a superb acequia nearby, we could walk on it and extend the walk a little. With everyone in agreement, not hard when there was only 4 of us, we headed up hill again, but this time for only 30 metres.  We soon reached the acequia del Almiar, this is a fine example of how the Moors transformed these once barren slopes into fertile terracing. Stopping at the Almiar balsa for lunch we were serenaded by croaking frogs, there must have been hundreds of them along the banks of the pond. Resuming our walk we continued along...

This week, by way of a change, the Sunday walk was on a Saturday, I could not go on the Sunday so apologies to José and Dave who were waiting for us at 8.30 on Sunday morning. Our primary destination was the Laguna Yeguas on the side of Veleta, from there we hoped to continue up to the Refugio Elorrieta. After an early morning start 12 of us drove to the Hoya de la Moro carpark on the side of Veleta where we met up with Mark and Anne. The weather was perfect, clear blue sky, no wind and the temperature just warm enough to walk without a jacket. We set off at a gentle pace following the road up to Borreguiles. There was still a lot of snow about but not in the usual places. After a couple of hours of easy walking we arrived at the Laguna Yeguas, it looked magnificent, a turquoise coloured sheet of water surrounded by the snow covered hills, a deep blue sky and an iceberg floating in the middle. What more could you ask for on a day out in the middle of July! After a short b...

This week we had a nice easy walk to the Cruz de Atalaya above Padul. With summer finally here, and the temperatures set to reach 38 degrees we had an early 8.30 start. With only a short drive we were ready for walking before the sun had come over the mountains. I had advertised the climb up to the Cruz as taking an easy zig zag path, but then I thought to hell with that, make them go the hard way. Well to be honest, I decided to do the circular walk in the opposite direction, it made more sense. For the first half hour the path follows a level track in the forest which gave us a lot of shade. and then there was a short steep section in the sun. I think it must have been this bit that caused the sarcastic comments about shade and zig zag paths. After this it is just a gentle stroll on easy forest tracks up to the Cruz. We stopped here for a very early lunch and then took the zig zag path back to the car. Phew! what a relief, when everyone said that we had done the route i...

Cortijo Hornillo Sunday, the 30th June, was billed as our big walk. It is not always a walk of great length or with a lot of climbing but it normally takes longer than our normal Sunday excursion. This Sunday was no exception,it was 8pm when we all got home. We met as normal at 9am and drove over to Guejar Sierra and then on a steep, twisting and, in parts, a dirt road to the Serpentina quarry, not the source of  snakes but a green stone. We were going to do the Estrella walk but on a different route. This involved walking up to Cortijo Hornillo, which is now a selection of mountain refugio huts, high up on the hillside of Veleta. The first hour of the walk is quite a pull, but after this the path eases off and continues at a gentle climb through woodland and open fields, with the views towards Mulhacen and Alcazaba improving all the time. Mr Ferrari ( Graham), had been running well, with the wheels now fixed after last week’s crash and with his engine running sm...