Lecrin Valley Limpers

What a change to the weather we had last week, gone are the damp miserable days, to be replaced by glorious sunshine, and to celebrate the return of  the sun we climbed up to the Ermita del Cristo Zapato in Pinos del Valle. It was cold when we met up down by the dam for the start of our walk, hats, scarfs and gloves cold, but you could tell the day had promise. To start with the path winds around the hillside slowly climbing its way up. Mike was convinced he knew the way and tried leading us off piste. We let him go off by himself, knowing that he would soon return. We then resumed the walk, following the correct trail as it started to do some serious climbing.  It wasn’t long before layers were starting to come off.  As we progressed up through the forest we came across some hunters, who they were or what they were hunting we had no idea. They looked more like Special forces, with their assault rifles, radios and camouflage gear. I tried surrendering to t...

Once again the weather was not looking promising for the weekend, with rain forecast throughout the day on Sunday. It would have been unprecedented for two walks to be cancelled in a row, we would have become a laughing stock. The English walking group afraid to go out in the rain. I was determined we would go somewhere, and, like Hilary last week, I had a back up plan. We could always go to the bar.  We met at the crossroads in Talara and it was dry, but low cloud was hanging about on the hills and it did not look like we would get away without a soaking. The route I had chosen had numerous options to cut it short if it did start to rain. Someone suggested we could start off with a coffee in the bar, but I was worried that once we got sat down I would never be able to motivate anyone into moving. We set off for Mondújar castle, it’s only a short distance away but you do get a reasonable climb to warm you up in the morning. We didn’t stay long as there was a bit o...