Parking Co-ordinates 38.18085, -0.8119
It's hard to believe that almost a week has gone by since we arrived here last Wednesday afternoon, and as I haven't made any notes to jog my memory, it's now quite difficult to remember exactly how we've passed our time๐ค. Much of it has gone by socialising with friends over the odd bevvy or three๐น, and just for good health, I've managed to fit in a 'stre_____ch' class, a gym session and together we've done several fairly long walks.
Our Home for the Next 10 weeks |
Monday morning was the Rally's coffee morning where we were informed of the weeks activities and forthcoming trips, but the only one that we wanted to participate in was the Tuesday Hill Walk that apparently isn't for the faint (or weak) hearted!!! However, for this week only the leader had decided to go easy on everyone and really it just turned out to be a meander through the high hills that form part of the range that lie behind us - or in other words the foot hills of The Penya de la Mina.
One of the quarries where marble is chipped out to send to China!! |
Wednesday was our day to pick up our hire car from Alicante Airport ✈, and although the procedure was a bit drawn out because of queues, it was all fairly straight forward and incredibly cheap!! We've got a Skoda Fabia for the next 9 days and it's cost was just €8.50 for the whole hire period, and then when we take that back we're expecting to get a similar car and that will be only €17.50 for 20 days. Of course they tried to sell us an upgrade and their own insurance but we didn't need either because we've got a policy that covers everything that their enhanced collision weaver does, and back in the UK we only paid £30 for it for the whole year!
I only ate half the chips - honest๐๐๐ |
Thursday dawned a bit overcast and cool after some overnight rain so in the morning we occupied our time with 'housework' and cooking but none of that took very long. So around 11ish when the sun came to play we packed up our picnic and took ourselves off to a nearby beach at a place called La Marina. There we were able to walk on the golden sands with the Mediterranean lapping at our feet for several miles but unfortunately our picnic had to be gobbled in the car because in the early afternoon more heavy drops of wet stuff fell!
I feel just like him popping up out of my burrow to inspect my surroundings๐ |
However, one of the biggest things for us both now is deciding how we're going to continue this tour! Our initial plan was to stay here at Marjal until the 20th January and then possibly move further south towards Portugal indulging in some wild camping along the way. That idea has now been totally abandoned and we've extended our stay here until 30th January, and after that we're going to move onto another big site further North near Barcelona! I think it's fair to say that our confidence has been knocked quite badly and we're still not sure how our roving life will continue, but as we've now had two bad episodes in Spain (our bikes were nicked back in 2015) this country may well be excluded from our future itineraries.
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Horrible experience and really bad luck. I hope you will regain your confidence and carry on travelling, in Spain too. Don’t let one bad man colour your views of the country.
ReplyDeletePlease will you give us the name of the car hire company at Alicante ? We’ve hired in Catral before but this sounds a much better deal .
Looking forward to reading many more episodes of your blog.
Hi Chris and thanks for your kind comments☺.
ReplyDeleteThe 'Incident' really was a horrible experience but time and distance have certainly added perspective, and with our added security (cab doors chained together and a quick removal pin in our habitation door) we're now quite confident to carry on with our roving lifestyle!
With regard to car hire we booked ours through https://www.recordrentacar.com/en/ at Alicante Airport, but as with all things that look like a bargain there were one or two catches! We have our own insurance that covers the 'excess charges' for a year on any car that we hire, so we had no need to take out there additional cover which comes in at about €10 per day. Ours is with https://www.questor-insurance.co.uk/ and cost about £30 for one driver. Additionally, the hire company charge €32 for cleaning and refuelling which is non refundable, and also a fuel charge of about €72 which is refundable if you take it back with a full tank. The final thing to be aware of is, that if you don't take their enhanced insurance they will put a block of €1,100 on your credit card but that was removed very quickly once we returned the car intact. Hope that helps
Many thanks Linda. That is very useful.
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