7th May 2018

We met up with Mike & Sue at the Lo-Cost petrol station in Ondara and filled up with cheap fuel before heading on to the AP7 motorway north towards Valencia in 19 degrees and bright sunshine. We had an uneventful drive to Valencia and then on to the A3 in the direction of Madrid. We stopped for coffee at a motorway service area near Utiel then continued along the A3 and then turned on to the A43 in the direction of Albacete. We stopped for lunch at another motorway service area, unfortunately a coach had arrived just before us so there was a queue at the ladies conveniences. After lunch we continued along the A43 and then onto the A4 in the direction of Cordoba. The scenery along the way was varied from undulating plains with straight roads, some fairly steep uphill sections and some large fields of grape vines. The sat nav took us off at junction 258 to Santa Elena our final destination for the day. The route it to us to the campsite was a little more convoluted than it needed to be BUT the route was wide and trouble free and avoided taking us through the village centre. We pulled into Camping Despenaperros and found a picturesque site set amongst trees. It was €17 for the night for a fully serviced pitch with drinking water, electricity, waste and free wifi all included. This is definitely a site we would stay at longer on another occasion when we have more time.

The restaurant in the campsite was not yet open for the season but we were given a 10% off voucher for the restaurant in the local hotel about 100m from the campsite. We had an excellent reasonably priced meal and I can recommend the venison with mushroom sauce (really a lovely stew) the girls had the cod with garlic and Mike had a steak all were excellent as was the wine. Whist we were in the restaurant the thunder that we had heard earlier turned into a small rain shower which had stopped by the time we left the restaurant. Once back at the vans there was some lightning but no more rain.

We woke up on Tuesday morning to a misty cold day, hopefully it will burn off soon.