Lecrin Valley Limpers

This week we had a short, easy walk starting off from the Carretera de Cabra road. I say easy advisedly here as there were a couple of tricky sections.  We met at the BP in Cozvijar and then drove on  to The Repsol in Padul to look for anyone looking fit enough to go for a walk. After driving around the carpark in a convoy we came across Mark and Anne who followed us to the start of the walk.  The walk started on a nice level track through the campo. You don’t have to walk far before you come across an unusual sight in Spain, Pigeon lofts, I kid you not. It only needed a man with a flat cap and a Whippet,  heading for the pit and I could have been at home, well, the blue sky and the yellow T shirt would have to go. We walked on, passing Orchids and other spring flowers.  Now we know this route quite well having walked in this area a number of times, but in an effort to shorten the path a bit, because we had Jan and Martine’s grandchildren with u...

This week we went to Beas de Granada, just off the A92 on the far side of Granada. There were 16 of us in Cozvijar and then we met up with another 6 in Huetor de Santillan. The walk starts from the village of Beas and follows a campo road that soon leads you out of the village and into the countryside and onto foot paths. Dave was in front leading the way, following a GPS track I had sent him. But on Saturday evening I had found a new path that cut out a climb. So while poor Dave and Billy were looking around for us, we were 30 metres above them having climbed a very easy slope, they unfortunately had to climb up the banking. The initial climb is about 300 metres but it is not steep and it eventually brings you out on a forest road we walked on about 12 months ago. Then it was thick mist and raining, this time we had a deep blue sky and extensive views.    We continued walking in the forest until we came to our lunch spot. Now this wasn’t some grotty spot by ...

Our walk this week was our big adventure walk to Bermejales. It was advertised as suitable for anyone between 8 and 80. Well we hit both criteria, we had young David, Maria Jose’s son at 8 years and old Jim who was reclassified from viejo to anciano by some Spanish kids he met on the walk and, according to Conchi, you have to be really old for that. We all met in Bermejales and this was where the complicated bit set in. The walk is a linear one and, whilst you could walk there and back along the same path, walking back against the flow of the other walkers would take forever as there are a number of choke points along the way. Another reason for following the river downhill is that the walk just gets better the further you go. Our solution is to take some cars to the end of the walk so that we can drive back at the end. So while the drivers were busy positioning their cars, and with 27 walkers we needed a lot of cars, the rest of the group had time for a leisurely cup of cof...