Day 14 - Someido to Muniellos

 Such a beautiful place to wake up , we will miss this one. The bakery is open today so there’s warm bread and croissant for breakfast. Then pack up and successfully get off the pitch without slipping in the mud! 

On the way out of the village we noticed a small market in the town and stop for a look but with not much fridge space we can’t really buy anything from the three food stalls in the town carpark…though they are obviously very popular with locals. 

We’ve decided to loop back round to the coast heading a little further inland before turning north again. We’re still hoping for a bear sighting but actually more snow covered mountains would be ok too! 

It’s a lovely drive south, if a little narrow, we are alongside the fast flowing river for much of the way. The valley seems more protected , or perhaps it’s just a week later, but wildflowers are coming into life everywhere and most trees here are bursting buds. 

Another lovely drive and we stop from time to time to look around, but don’t go far from the van until we approach Piedrafita de Babia, around 4000ft in altitude with a stunning long straight road leading to snowy mountain peaks, ice melt running alongside it and raptors overhead. 

From here we head west briefly before turning back north on a bigger and faster road, there seem to be quite a few large villages beside coal mines, so no doubt there’s more industrial traffic to carry, but the roads are still far from busy and the views are great.


We spot a large laybay set up to look for bears on a rocky hillside. Binoculars in hand we sit in the hide for a bit scanning the hillside. Excitedly we convince ourselves we are watching a bear sunning itself high up on the rocky hillside but disappointingly realise after a bit it’s a chamois… larger in body than we’d realised they were, and a tiny bit bear shaped! When it jumps down we realise what looks like grass is actually fairly tall heather as it disappears completely immediately and we accept that to happen on a bear by chance might take longer than we have! 

Back on the road and we reach a tunnel that is having the roof reinforcement replaced. The roadworks limit the 2km tunnel length to single lane traffic travelling at 20kmph. It is a little disconcerting when we are the only vehicle travelling in our direction and requires a lot of trust in traffic lights. Trying to keep the speed down when everything is telling you to hurry out is a challenge too! 


At Mual we turn off to take the mountain road to the visitor centre for the Muniellos Protected zone. The only things we pass on the way up are hikers. The centre itself is only open at weekends in March so there’s no one there at the top either, but there’s a lovely path out to a stunning viewpoint and some unrestricted trails from the carpark. after some walking it’s also a great place to picnic! 

It’s starting to get late enough to think about overnight stops now and a quick look on park4night gives us a few suggestions. We plump for one that involves retracing our steps a little but when we find it it’s well worth the extra 8km, beside a bar/restaurant it’s just us in an empty field and costs us just €6. There are sheep, horses and cows in adjacent fields and all we can hear are cowbells as we look down the valley to snow capped mountains …. 


Cumulative mileage: 646.4

Overnight: ‘Aire’ at Hotel Funsiquin , Godrez (P4N 33811)

Spending: Bakery €5.60, Aire €6, Shower €3, Bar €8.60


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Day 41 - Riberduero to Embalse de La Cuerda del Pozo

Image
 Waking to sunshine and cuckoos, definitely spring now. Really hard to leave with the sun shining so we take our time doing all the necessary tasks when you are taking advantage of staying at a campsite.  A little later than we should leave we hot the road but only for a couple of miles to the limestone castle in the adjacent village of Penafiel. On paper this is a walkable distance but being at the top of a high hill the drive is very welcome.  The castle is unlike any other we’ve seen. It sits along a narrow ridge and to do this had to be built long and narrow. It’s almost ship like with one tower in the centre like a giant funnel. It’s also unlike any other in that the only way to visit it is on a Spanish speaking guided tour and on a ticket that includes seeing the ‘wine museum’ that is housed within the castle walls (€6.60). We tack onto a tour but are unable to keep up with the Spanish, so wander at the tail end of the group enjoying the sunshine and trying to work ...
Read more

Ready to go!

Image
Seems a long time since we were heading back from Scotland and talking about avoiding some of the British winter and taking the van to Spain, but nine months later we are about to hit the road.  The last couple of weeks have been filled with packing and re-packing to make the most compact version of everything. With a vague idea that we might keep going for six weeks and temperatures that could easily stretch from single figures to 30+ deciding what is needed is a challenge! Ten years on I’m still managing to find tiny mods that add space (like the magnetic knife rack holding little metal boxes) …and adding more fairy lights. The long ferry journey will be a new experience. Graham lacks 'sea legs' so it remains to be seem how crossing the Bay of Biscay will go. Particularly as they’ve brought the sailing forward tonight due to impending high winds! There’s also the added complication of having to have some things in a bag to take to the cabin …this destroys my van organisation...
Read more

Spain Day 5 - San Sebastián to Pamplona

Image
Bright sunshine to wake to at last! Off to Pamplona. Mostly motorway but we moved to the smaller road for the last 20 mins or so. Blue skies and snow capped mountains visible as we climbed. Stunning roadside mirador opportunity where we also got our first view of circling vultures and saw trees filled with nests of processionary moth caterpillars high in the pines.  Finally got a chance to make a brief visit to a bigger supermarket and fill up the fridge and the fuel tank just before we reached the city. The aire here is very new, on the outskirts of town next to the fire station, but only a short walk away from the centre (with a glass lift to save the climb). Google wasn’t happy with the address but got us near enough to follow the signs. It’s the first time that we’ve seen lots of English vans, mostly returning from winters on the ‘costas’. It’s nice to chat about their recommendations and experiences. The aire seems to be somewhere that young people hang around and smoke weed w...
Read more