So David Smith, (you know you’re in trouble now) what have you done so far? Speak up lad, speak up. 

Beni to Relleu 24 kms                           

Relleu to Benifallim 30

Benifallim to Alcoy 23

Alcoy to Bocairent 30

Bocairent to Vallada 24 

Vallada to Benali 29

Benali to Collado Carroche 29

189 kilometres Sir. About 118 miles Sir. 

Well done boy. What a son, what a son, what a bum, what a son, you’re just a – boom boom boom- lick spittle. Lick spittle. 7 ‘o’ levels. Thank you Lord for giving me such a son such a bum, such a son, such a bum. Good boy. Good boy. Good lad. 

Thank you Sir. Please don’t hurt me.

The alarm went at 6am. Charge running down on my phone, iPad and Gav. Found some batteries for Gav, thank God. Don’t do this walk without a gps device with a GPX track on it that keeps you on route. It’s essential unless you want to get lost for months.

31 kilometres to do today and I’m determined to make it to Cortes de Pallas. I rang a hostel when I got a signal yesterday on top of a hill and I’m booked in. I need a good meal and a warm bed. I would have crumbled if I were Shackleton. I strapped on my headlamp, dismantled the tent, had a bounty bar, salted peanuts, two dates and water for breakfast and set out into the cold wind. Wrapped up in my Auntie Vera knitted hat, cashmere scarf gifted by Liddy Lin, waterproof jacket gifted by Tesco for £18, thermal jumper, Blades shirt, shorts and knickers. No commando capers today. 

I set off at 6.30 in the dark and marched with grim purpose. My duty as a trekker and my necessary purpose as a man. It was a very cold wind which made me wince. My chest was bad last night but a decent length of broken sleep had gently waved it away. Only to return I think like an unwanted neighbour who keeps running out of sugar. The sun eventually crept between the horizon and the cloud cover, lighting up the vapours in the valleys. 

Apart from a couple of four wheel drives who have passed and stopped out of morbid interest to assess my preparedness for these conditions, I haven’t seen a soul in the last two days. I’m going to make that warm bath and soft bed tonight if I have to drag myself there. In the half light I spotted some headlights slowly snaking up the hill towards me. Must be hunters at this time of day. As they eventually arrived I spotted rifles in the back of the cab and gave them a friendly wave. Thought it might extend my life expectancy longer than a V sign. 
The track dropped down and came to a real, if poorly maintained, road which according to Gav I should follow. 

Don’t want you to think that I’ve just relied on Gav for prep for navigation on this trip. I did weeks of prep, including downloading over 100 small maps, big scale, and read several blogs in detail of people who had walked this track. I’ve done a spreadsheet of where I should be when and whether I’m camping or hosteling that night. I’ve photocopied smaller scale maps so that if it snows badly or is otherwise horrible I know which direction to escape in. The scallop shell on my pack indicates that I’m a pilgrim not a vagrant and the document far right is my Pilgrim Credentials. It’s to get folk to treat me courteously as I treat them. I have a list of every hostel and spring on the route. Don’t do this if you’re not prepared. It can turn nasty even when you are prepared so improve your chances. And truthfully Harris is for overgrown paths, to cut a way through, but for wild dogs too. They can be nasty in one in a million cases. So can Harris.

So down to the bottom of the mountain road. And the valley floor opens out into a tight, but not insignificant, agricultural plain. Strewn with boulders.

How do they farm this land? By clearing it. Back breaking, by hand, diligent rock clearance. So that folk like this can plough the land. The second contact with humanity today. 

The road became a track through wilder land and heads north for 12kms before turning east along the side of a mountain range overlooking a man-made lake and snaking along for another 12kms to Cortes de Pallas. 

This is looking at the buttress I have to go around to the left,  8kms before turning to the right and heading east.

Halfway to the easterly turn a waterfall, possibly unheard for a few years, pours down from the buttress. Beautiful. Fill your flasks.

Hitting the T junction I turned right, climbed halfway up the hill and headed east. The views, with an ancient Moorish fort on the other side of the lake, looked amazing.

Even the clouds looked great.

And the lake cartainly does.

This is a long path that works it’s way up and down for a long way. It doesn’t take bikes, too many boulders, and it isn’t really a direct route from anywhere to anywhere. It’s a route that the GR7 made. So no-one walks on it. So lots of wildlife uses it. I saw deer, rare in this huntin’ shootin’ country, and wild oryx. As well as lots of mud baths along the path used by wild boar. Although they had dried up since the rains.

The views of the lake, castle and mountains to the side became more lovely and imposing, in proportion to my fatigue.

Late on in the afternoon, after sweltering in the sun and shivering in the shadows, I made it over the last hill and saw Cortes de Pallas below.

And it was still Christmas.

I had the longest bath in history, washed my clobber in the bath (which was a jacuzzi bath) and hung it up in front of the hot air fan. Limping down for dinner I had menu del dia which was mountain soup, with lots of veg and meat,  a whole squid with chips and chocolate custard. Kismet Hardy. (Again). 

Night night my loves. 

I did 29 kilometres yesterday from Vallada and it’s 88 kms in total from Vallada to Cortes de Pallas. The night was cold but not unfriendly. Bizarrely a car came up the track early in the night but it didn’t stop and there were no animal noises. There were two rocks under the tent and I had to make a letter S shape round them to sleep. It takes a while to get used to this.

It was just coming light when I had breakfast, dates, cheese and half a bounty bar with water. 

I hit the track at 8.50 am and made good speed downhill as the sun came out to play (with his hat on) hip, hip, hip hooray. 

The road passed a dry river bed in the bottom and cut up yet another hillside. I took three wrong turns that Gav spotted before I’d gone too far wrong. I hope Gav dunt brek. It was early afternoon before I got to the top and dropped down over the back of the hill. This is great exercise for a twenty year old. Yesterday a sign came up pointing to Casas de Benali saying 2hrs 15mins. It took me three and a half hours. Who does it in 2.15? Superman – without a rucksack? 

Another valley bottom, with some wild deer who had avoided being shot in this deep countryside leaping away from me over the tussocks and fallen trees. There was a good flow of clean water so I topped up my bottles. Had to get my feet a bit damp again crossing the stream.

This next climb was a megathon, finishing up at Pico de Carroche looking back south east.

I missed another turn. Apparently this is the E4 European super track from Spain to Greece. Jesus.

Another 4kms and I’d be at Collado Carroche. Nothing there but a spring but that would be gratefully received. I got there in half darkness, sorry no photo, climbed up the next hillside and pitched me tent up a bank at the side of the road under some pine trees. The flattest part was a worn animal track through the grass tussocks so I put broken branches across the path before the tent to warn the wildies that Dave woz ere. Another 29kms under my belt. 

The wind had got up. I lay underneath my sleeping bag fully clothed including my socks and boots to get an early start in the dark. I hadn’t eaten much in two days and wolfed down a tin of cold beans and a flask of spring water. I was fatigued and heard people talking. I’m sure it’s the funny little squeaks I was making due to a bad chest and a bit of a sniffly cold. It sometimes sounds like folk talking quietly against the whoosh of the wind in the treetops.  Or it could have been the spirits. 

I didn’t care too much. The spirits need love too and they’re only what we might have been and what we will be. Night night.

You know when some words don’t look right. Do you get that? Being just looks wrong today. Like Boeing without it’s O. Bering without it’s R or Beijing without it’s etc.etc. Anyway I’m glad that God made such beauty around me. My walking environment, the Blades and my family in reverse order. I’ll sing hymns while I’m walking. 

My paternal grandfather owned a forge in Sheffield. Not as grand as it sounds, he was Little Mester rather than Master, and one of my many uncles (Grandad was prolific on the reproduction front) wrote an article in the Guardian about him when he died in the 1960’s. My Uncle worked in the forge  as a child and remembers him singing hymns as he hammered industrial scissor blades white hot from the forge. Or summat like that, memory in shotgun rather than rifle territory. When I reread that a couple of years ago, after discovering a cut out copy lurking in the loft, I was touched. But the article was entitled Double-Edged and there was a selfish and uncaring side to him too. He wasn’t a family man. 

He chewed and smoked tobacco in a pipe. When I was about five years old he gave me a wad of tobacco to take a bite out of. I pewked and had a headache for hours. I was about to say what an old bastard trick that was but I’ve just remembered feeding Juliet a spoonful of chili oil at the same age, saying it was tomato ketchup. I wet myself laughing at her distress. Some of the genetic chain is unbroken. I hope I care more and that my epitaph is more like At Least He Tried. The maternal grandfather? Words cannot be written or spoken that would adequately describe the beauty of his soul.

I was in the Hotel Makasa four days ago and a taxi took me back in the morning to where I had left off my walk the night before in Vallada. A Spanish breakfast in a busy bar and a walk past a local mini-chapel.

There must have been an air of hopelessness about my gait as the vultures circled in the sky. Big buggers they were too. But not from this distance.

It took me a while to cross the valley floor and make my way to the start of the canyon leading up into the mountains, and some of the way was a struggle round flooded patches from the recent deluge. Eventually I had to wade through a pool, getting my socks and boots wet for the rest of the day. The jungle was too thick either side for me to work through, even with my chopper ‘Harris’. 

My feet might have been wet but my eyes were delighted. The track drifted up, down and across both sides of the canyon and was mostly rough rocks building up to a strewn boulder path. 

Nobody. Nowt. Even the vultures had pushed off. Disappointed at my survival. The track up the canyon wound for at least 10 kms, twisting and turning and revealing fantastic aspects and features.

After a sweaty lifetime, my pack was peak full with food, water and what I’d brung, and the sun was out, the valley opened out with olive trees and a ruined farmhouse and the track kicked up to my right by the side of this grand arch. Duke. Ferdinand.

I struggled to climb up and escape the confines of the canyon. But it was great looking down to where I’d been and where I would have gone.

The path led further up a reasonably flat back of a long escarpment, with long distance sideways and backwards views, and then dropped steeply down the scarp.

Working down, across and up valley sides became the norm. Until a farm blocked my way. Thank God for my gps, Gav. You can’t rely on signposts. This is one of the primary walking routes across Spain, GR7, and it forms part of a pan-European route that arches through France, Switzerland, Austria etc to the southern tip of Greece. And it’s not properly signed, locals don’t know it exists and nobody walks on it. They’re too busy walking in groups of hundreds of people on pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela like I was going to before I realised how crap it is. Flat, featureless Caminos. I’d crossed the one I was planning to take earlier in the day. Earlier in the day I’d crossed the one I was planning to take. Back to the blocked way.

I climbed over the farm fence and crossed it’s land. A pack of dogs suddenly let loose and I reached for Harris in my shoulder bag. Luckily they were penned behind an inner fence. If I’d got pepper spray I could have blasted the lot. An angry young man stormed towards me but relaxed a bit when I was ok with him. He explained in Spanish that he ran an animal sanctuary and they had to fence off land to keep a wide variety of animals. The GR7 maintenance crew had come out a year before trying to cut a swathe through the woodland and scrub around the farm and he’d seen them off. He smelt. My sense of smell is poor but he stank of sweat and unwashed body parts. Dirty get. He helped me through the scrub on the outer fence and got me some water from their well. The water level here had dropped to 300 metres below the surface so I was topping up with deep supplies. Tasted great. A woman who spoke a bit of English said hello. Bet she stank too.

Just two hundred metres away the track rose up a very steep climb. It was a killer. I pulled myself up with the pack pulling me back. At one point I slipped and grabbed hold of a cactus. Kiss my tomatoes Christian! That hurt. I still can’t get all the spikes out three days later. One poor little bugger had given up half way up.

Finally I emerged out on the top ledge. A feeling of relief.

I belted it down the last three kilometres as it was going dark and found Casas de Benali to be a tiny row of terraced cottages less then 50 metres long. Two people were taking the evening air and neither knew of of any rooms locally. I traipsed up the trail and plunged thirty feet into a wood, hidden by the trees from the track, pitched my tent, had a can of cold beans and slept fitfully from 7pm to 8am. 

A long, long day and a cold, cold night. Night night.

I thought I’d got enough signal to send the message about Vallada to Benali but it’s only just posted. I was in me tent two nights ago on the edge of a forest. It goes dark at 6 and light at 8 so not much walking time. Here’s me intent.

I have made it to Cortes de Pallas and am in a hostel. The walk was 55 miles over the last three days, which is ok but there int owt from Vallada to here apart from one mountain spring so my pack was over 20 kilos with two days water and three days food. On top of which there is mountain range after mountain range to climb. I am tired and I’d scheduled a break here so I’ve got a rest day tomorrow to recover, replenish and blog. See you tomorrow.

Night night. 

In tent and done a very hard day’s slog. 
Saving power and not very good signal. Will blog fully in a couple of days hopefully. X

Last night (she said, oh baby I feel so down), well the bit in brackets is actually the lyrics of a Strokes song. And excellent it is too. Last night after checking in I went to the only place open in Bocairent for tea and chat. Two pints of Estella damm, one glass of tinto, patatas bravas, home made pork belly scratchings, octopus, mini spicy sausages with bread to soak up the juice, and a plate of kidney shaped beans in a garlic gravy which blew my socks away. Kiss my tomatoes Christian! Less than £11. 

This morning was cold and a bit of a breeze, but no frost around as it was cloudy and rainy. Just a wind chill factor. I headed down the GR7 track and realised that the first 20 kms were across a plain and with the rain in Spain it was going to be as boggy as heck. I made a snap, and good, decision to turn around and detour to Vallada by road. A local bar was open so I stopped for two coffees and a tostado for breakfast. Felt better. Bocairent looked ok as I left, despite the power cable!

The rain came on faster and I had to put on my Swiss Army waterproof coat over my rucksack, which makes me look like this.

People tend not to give me the benefit of the doubt. I don’t give a shit. I’m too old and battleworn to care what strangers think of me. That’s for people who are climbing the life and career ladder. I stepped off it. 

The road curled down a canyon towards Ontinyent.

In extremis I could sleep in these caves. Wouldn’t be the first time.

The extent of the recent deluge was amazing and apparent. This is water deposited debris a good 40 feet above the present river level. Just six feet below the level of the road I was standing on. Unbelievable.

The farmland survives on irrigation from the river and the channels weren’t running. They were blocked by flood deposits.

You can probably only see one of the guys in blue down in the channel on the bank on the other side of the river but there was a gang of them digging out the mud from the deluge. Just one little blue dot showing. Spot the dot. Left of the little concrete stanchion. 

After Ontinyent the road rose up over another line of hills. Knackering. Looking back at Ontinyent the weather cleared a bit. The peak in the middle is the top of Serra Mariola which I climbed up yesterday. 

Eventually the top of the hill arrived and the road started dropping. There’s no traffic. Nothing for an hour. After another hour walking Vallada appeared in the valley. Beyond the valley are the mountains in the distance that I’ll be walking through. So far it’s been a bit domesticated. Those distant peaks are in uninhabited territory. Well, not many folk anyway. 

The peaks above Vallada looked pretty impressive, none more so than this baby. Reading glasses will pick out the cross on top! 

I pulled into Vallada, well I walked actually but pulled sounds cool. I asked around if there was a room for the night and there was a clear no. I had to wait for the supermarket to open at 5pm and I stocked up for the next three days as there are no shops or anything for the next 88 kms. My intention was to get back on the trail and pitch my tent but it was getting dark and I was nowhere near the forest cover I need to wild camp. Maggie had spotted a hotel on the internet, 8 kms from where I was. Coincidentally it was on the Pilgrimage route which I had originally intended to follow to Santiago de Compostela, and I had my pilgrim credentials with me, which I’d obtained from The Friends of the Camino. I called the hotel and they offered me the Pilgrim rate for the room. I went for it and stuck my thumb out as it was getting dark. The first truck stopped and gave me a lift to the hotel door. Result. I paid and the hotel stamped my credentials. It’s only a white lie that I’m doing the Pilgrimage. Nothing too bad. I’m in my room eating my stores. Darkish because the main light dunt work.

Not only stores but the best dried dates you can ever get. Maggie bought them from a couple across our road who support the livelihoods of Palestinian farmers under occupation by distributing Zaytoun products. Beautiful taste in the mouth and in the heart.

No escape route now. I’ve got 88 kms to my next possible bed in Cortes de Pallas. Fanny Adams between now and then apart from one spring. I can’t avoid wild camping any more.

Or I could pretend to be tough and defiant.

Night night.

The smell of crushed wild thyme under your feet. Kiss my tomatoes Christian. Which means absolutely nothing but I thought might represent an English version of an American superlative. Tolkien must have based ‘athelas’ on thyme. Surely ref?

I’m including the kilometres from my mistakes below so this is what I’ve walked so far.

Beni to Relleu                         24 kms                           

Relleu to Benifallim              30

Benifallim to Alcoy               23

Alcoy to Bocairent                 30

So that’s 107 – 66 miles. That’s ok. If I can average that I’ll be ok. 

Camping tomorrow unless an angel intervenes. It’s a bit chilly and damp in most places for that caper. But needs must. Cheers babes.

I felt terrible last night. I felt like I couldn’t move my arms and just felt ill. It cleared up but I had a fitful night and the dreams weren’t mine. Like I’d got someone else’s head on my body. Weird. In the morning I felt crap too and was bunged up and sneezing. I’ve not been ill on my previous walks and didn’t want to be now. Then it occurred to me that I wasn’t drinking a lot of water. I knocked a litre down, had some breakfast and set off. The morning was clear and freezing so I had my hat on. I felt better after a while and made a point of drinking at each spring I came across. 

Alcoy looked good in the morning sun.

Hi G.

I’ve got a GPS, only a basic Garmin Etrex 20 but I downloaded a GPX of the GR7 track and it was brilliant and essential today with poor waysigning. That’s brilliant jargon int it? It looked good signage when I eventually joined the GR7 but it peaked early.

Straightaway I was into the type of country I’d come here for.

The track followed the gorge floor for a couple of kilometres before cutting up the valley side, giving welcome relief from the sub-zero temperatures down below. 

The track climbed another 8 kilometres and part way up it was blocked by fallen trees. Lots of em. I had to climb up the banking and climb over wherever I could. The foliage was dense and spiky. Not great when you’re in shorts commando (too much information) and a t shirt, but no hat by this time as it was very warm in the sun.

The mountain is over 4000 feet and it was a reight slog. At the top the views were well worth it. Stunning. 

The air was good to breathe and the water from the springs was sweeter than any I can recall. Not cold either as it filters through the mountain core.

The route cuts round the top of the mountain, Serra Mariola, and heads west and undulatingly downhill. But it disappears and then miraculously reappears two hundred metres to the left or right and you end up pushing through gorse and other shrubs to get back to it. You only know it’s there because of a trusty GPS, that I’ve christened Gav. Without Gav I’d still be up there.

The sun was now full on and it was really beautiful out there.

But time was moving on and the track descended into forest where the views disappeared.

I saw one other walker all day in 9 hours and 30 kilometres. A Spanish bloke coming the other way and we shook hands and wished each other a good trail ‘Buen Camino’. As the sun slowly descended the frost began to expand its territory.

Still warm in the sun I quickened my pace but I knew it would be almost dark before I made it to Bocairent. Down in the valleys it was a British late spring afternoon out of the shade and you could feel growth starting.

I came on a deserted old church with the oldest tree outside that I’ve ever seen. There were stone ramparts either side to support this ancient oak.

The sun was sinking down when I first spotted Bocairent and started to drop down a steep mountain track towards it. 

It’s a pretty town. With ancient narrow streets. 

The local premiership team, Valencia, are on tv. I think I’ll watch it – the atmosphere here in a local cafe where I’ve topped up with tapas is pretty good. Night night my darlings.

A late rise – 9.30 – and a decent breakfast, largely of bread, olive oil and crushed tomatoes. Lovely. Because I ended short of my destination yesterday I had to go back today and finish off what I left. There and back was about 23kms, without my rucksack. Funnily enough 23 kms with my rucksack too. But I hadn’t got it. The sky was clear all day and again the shadows held onto the frost, but in the sun it was warm. Sunday is a grim day to be roadwalking, particularly in the countryside, as thousands of motor bikers race around all over the place. They even ride in tandem up to twenty at a time. They should get a proper hobby. Walking. 

The road, as usual, works its way up a hill and down to Benifallim, but not such a high one or steep one. The views are more pastoral than dramatic, but still lovely. In this one you can see the frost on the valley floor under the trees. It’s going to be cold nights for camping. Oh heck. But Scotland was freezing and I got rained and snowed off the Cape Wrath trail. And then I only had my trusty tarp Wilson. This time I’ve got my one man tent and an inflatable mattress to keep me off the cold earth. In Jockland I didn’t have owt but a groundsheet. Be reight.

The hunters were out in force. I think you can see this one this time on top of the hill. I zoomed in. I didn’t hear any shots in my area but there was one over the hill to the north so someone may have copped lucky.

The path I’m taking tomorrow and for the next four weeks – the GR7 – runs through a valley in a few days that’s been bought by a rich folks’ hunting club and they’ve put a 3 metre fence around it. Apparently it’s easier to get over the fence and across than get round. We’ll see. I’m inclined to go round. Mass trespass on Kinder Scout would have been cool but that was 85 years ago and individual trespass gives only one target. I’ll go round.

The road crept over the brow of the hill and the warming valley opened up.

It was like taking a run in cricket and Benifallim was the far stumps where I turned round and dashed back. It’s a very quiet village but nice looking.

On my way back I made a stop at the Venta Sant Jordi, the inn on the photo with the bikes. It was half three but they were still serving late lunch and I had a nice menu of the day with warming local scran. Cheeses, cured ham, pork ribs, hot onion croquettes. Just what the doctor ordered. Well actually it was me that ordered it. The sun was going down when I came out so I legged it back to the hostel before the ice took over. I was only in my shorts and t shirt. Alcoy in the valley bottom backed by the hills I’m going over tomorrow, resplendent in the pale, chilly evening sun. Great. A hot bath. I washed my dirty clothes and hung them over my radiators, which then went off. Hope they come back on. Pretty please.

Walking down through town there are lots of Christmas mannequins of black men climbing up balconies to deliver presents. 

Not very pc if you have a Hampstead mentality but moorish blood runs through Spanish veins and 800 years ago Christians, Moors and Jews were living in peace side by side. It struck me as similar to the Dutch tradition of Black Piet who helps Sinterklaas. Interestingly Piet is a Moor from Spain in Dutch folklore. 

Anyway my lovelies I’m tired as an old fart might be. A long day tomorrow, nearly 30 kms again with my rucksack uphill and down dale. I’m not going to push myself slavishly to reach Reus on time. If the body says ‘slow down’ and I think it might be saying that at the moment, then that’s what I’ll do. I’ve got all the rest of my life to walk from Tarifa to John O’Groats. Bite size chunks. Night night. Sleep tight. Hope the midges don’t bite.

Strange coincidences. When I arrived at Casa Perla yesterday afternoon it was a welcome sight I can tell You. Well, I did I with a capital letter and You my dears are no less important.  It looks nice.

Over to the right is a garage door and I heard voices from inside so I popped my head in, expecting some bloke to be working on a car. Instead it was converted into a bar. Pearl, the co-owner, laughed. Her and her partner Huib (Dutch) had passed me earlier in the day driving to Finisterra to buy my breakfast as all the local shops were shut. Huib joked that I was their guest. They passed me coming back and said what a pace I was setting and that I must be their guest. When I popped my head in an hour later she laughed, called Huib through and he nearly wet himself. I’m not that funny.

I told Pearl that her bar looked like the Cavern. She was shocked and asked me how I knew about that. Apparently her dad was a soul singer who was backed by the Beatles in the Cavern and in Hamburg, Davy Jones. He disappeared in 1971 and she can’t find him. She thought I knew the connection.

Huib said he was from Den Haag and we both laughed about the Duelling Pianos bar, a local  very well known landmark in nearby Scheveningen. I was checking my Facebook and got onto my exiled blades group. A blade had posted on our great form and I went on his Facebook page. He was from Den Haag and had posted photos of sunsets over Scheveningen.

I went up into the village to a restaurant run by two Scottish guys, father and son. Salt of the earth. I said both sides of my family came from Scotland but I’d done some ancestry research and couldn’t find it. The dad said ‘Bloody hell’ I’ve just been on the phone talking to my cousin less than five minutes ago about tracing our ancestry. 

I had a pint, they gave me another pint, cooked fabulous potato and onion soup and chicken balti with chips(exquisite) and charged me £8! My turn to say bloody hell.

My breakfast room, 8am this morning.

Lovely views, including a clear Puig Campana.

Breakfast was great and I set off at 9am. Straight away I took a wrong turn and it cost me an extra kilometre, but at that point I was ok, on good form and ready for the long walk today, starting with a 15 kilometre uphill stretch, some of it very steep. An old Moorish castle came up on my left, built in the 12th century. The Arabs ruled most of Spain for hundreds of years. 

And as I struck out into the countryside the views got better and better. 

It was still below freezing in the shade, due to the clear night, but warm in the sun. Bizarre switching between warm and cold but carrying my pack was keeping me warm enough. The frost clung to the side of the road all day.

When you don’t want to carry a lot of water these fresh water sources are brilliant.

I’d planned to turn off the road onto a footpath I’d seen on a map I’d downloaded from a Spanish government website. There was a barrier across the road saying it was private property but I thought the footpath was a public right of way. After the best part of two kilometres I realised that the dried up river bed I was following (it was too high up in the mountains to still benefit from the recent deluge) was going to be completely overgrown. Worse still, working my way back to the road, I saw a bloke on the hill up to my right in a safety vest and one coming down the hill in front of me. They were hunters armed with proper rifles, not shotguns, and there were five of them dotted round the valley. The safety vests prevented their mates taking a shot at them if they moved. The guy quizzed me but I said I was lost and asked him the way to a nearby town and he was ok. Lucky he hadn’t put a bullet up my arse. I was all in black in the shade in the undergrowth in the bottom of the valley below. There were three hunters in various positions in this shot but the definition isn’t good enough to show them.

This was a big problem. It meant I had to do a dogleg via Torremanzanos, cut up north to Benifallim and then cut west to Alcoy. All three legs meant substantial steep climbs and falls and a total kilometre count for the journey of 42 kilometres. I can’t do that with a rucksack. I can only just do it without one when the climbs are involved. I decided to see how far I could get. And the scenery stole the show.

The picture above is Benifallim. I got there and I was done in, so I phoned my hostel 12 kilometres away and they sent out a bloke who I had to bung. I’ve changed my schedule and I’m staying here in Alcoy another night. I’ll walk to Benifallim and back tomorrow to keep momentum in my legs but I’ll give my shoulders a rest and leave the rucksack in my room. Joy of joys it puts wild camping off until Tuesday night. 

And Alcoy is nice. Night night.

X