Walk 22 May 2016 Durcal tubo

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This week we had 2 walks organised a tough one and an easy one.
The tough group met in Durcal and had a short drive to the start of the walk above the Hydro electric station.
Since we last did this walk 3 years ago the route has been upgraded to a PR local path, with yellow and white waymarking signs. An excellent choice as the views are superb and it’s good to see the medio ambiente putting some effort into promoting these paths. It’s not a difficult climb, just steady away, for 2 hours as you slowly zig zag back and forth following the line of the water tube for the hydro. I have to appologise to Jim at this point as I had promised him we would see the tubo, but it was not to be. Someone has been working very hard covering it in. Talk about breaking rocks, I don’t know what the poor sods had done to get that job.
After two hours and with most of the climbing done you arrive at the casita del agua a little house where someone used to live and controlled the water going down the tube. A bit of a lonely existence as it’s a five hour return trip to Durcal just to get some milk.
We had a short break before walking to the peak of Penon de Granada, well that is what the sign said but according to my map that is about 1km away. Returning to the path we followed a forest road has it meandered through the trees to the top of the Rambla de Durcal. From the top it looks impossible that a path leads down to the bottom but there is one, it’s steep and rocky and there is even a tap to get water, well nowadays it just drips but it is sufficient to sustain a family of Tadpoles. How a frog found this pond in what is a dry river bed and could survive the summer is beyond me.
 By now we had climbed up steep sided mountsides, walked in the forest we had even clambered down rocky paths into the Rambla de Durcal with no problems.  Suddenly there was a yelling and screaming from behind, Jim was lying on the floor writhing in agony. Everyone rushed to his rescue expecting the worst. Well all except Dave Hobbs who just walked off with his 3 friends. Leaving the rest of us to clear up the blood and gore. Jim had been telling his friend Robin, that he was Val Doonican’s biggest fan. He has all the records and he loves to sing along to his songs. He had just burst out into “Walk tall” when Robin was thought he was doing the group a big favour, tripped him up. Robin, next time wait until he is on the cliff edge, not already in the barranco. Julie wasted a load of alcohol cleaning him up. It would have been a lot better if she had shared out as we all feeling a bit faint with all that blood about.  We gave Jim all the help we could for the rest of the way back, Lorraine even took her shirt off, to try and encourage him to walk a bit faster. It would have been better if we had had Dave and his 3 friends to help us, but he had left us and gone back to the car. He didn’t even attempt to drive in back and help poor Jim.
In an effort to help poor Jim recover from his traumatic experience we thought it best to go to the bar, for fluids and tapas.

A good day was had by all except poor Jim.
Jim have I said enough for you to get some sympathy from your dearly beloved or should I egg it up a bit more. I hope Albert has been refilling your glass.
We walked 14.3 and climbed 942 metres.

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