Jo's Birthday Beach Party - Barcelona, Spain (Jo Blogging)

Today I wake up a year older and Chris and I Skype with Mum and Dad. After that we head into the town shopping centre to get some groceries and have a look around while Jake and Amy head back into Barcelona for another days sight seeing.
We come back and have an easy afternoon by the pool and get ready to go out for a beach party! We saw signs around the campsite for a beach party at their beach club. I thought it would be fun as not sure when I would be able to celebrate the same way again! So we jump on the campsite’s courtesy bus and have a few drinks in the sand on chairs and rugs. It was great! By the time we got home everyone feel asleep as soon as they hit the pillow.

Barcelona, Spain - Day 1 (Jo Blogging)

Today we got up at a decent hour and headed to Barcelona. After about 5 hours driving we found our campsite in Barcelona. It was a fair way out of Barcelona, more then we had hoped but it was across the road from the beach and the train station so we were told was not too far a walk... how wrong that was!
So we set up camp as we were settled now for 5 days. The boys went all out setting up our awning and the tent ready for Christian’s arrival as well. I got in touch with Chris to see how he was going in Barcelona and when he was going to meet up with us. He decided it was easier to wait until tomorrow when we would be coming into the city. So we had a relatively quiet night and a swim to get ready for sight-seeing the next day.

After sending a message to Chris we hoped to meet up with him around 10.30-11am. I went to the reservation office to find out how to get to the train station. I was told it was only a 20min walk from the campsite so we didn’t think it was too bad seeing as that it was only early and already really warm. So we head off in what we though was the right direction and after more then 20min walking everyone was beginning to sweat and there was no train station in sight... on train tracks. So we decided to walk along the beach to at least walk through the water. This was a little nicer until we realised that there was a lot of nude people around us, especially old men! Jake made the mistake of looking around and seeing one guy applying sunscreen... to his groin! After that everyone tried to find another route to walk to avoid the nudists and hopefully find the train station. After at least an hour we finally found the train station but we were all so hot that we were so glad to get on an air conditioned train for 45min to cool down. It was also at that point that I realised that we went to the wrong station and should have headed 20 min in the opposite direction from the campsite... Ooops.
So we finally pull into Barcelona and meet Chris in Maccas for yet another beer. It was good to see him as it’s been 2 years since I have seen him! My little brother is now taller than me! Damn it! As Ads and I have done Barcelona before and Chris had already been checking out Barcelona for a few days we headed straight to the Parc Guell as none of us had been there yet. Jake and Aims headed for the bus tour for the next 2 days.
By early afternoon it was stinking hot so the three of us headed back to the campsite for a swim and to chill for the rest of the day.
Amy and Jake came back early evening with an early birthday present for me! It was a massive beach towel! Thanks guys

Aquarama - Benicassim, Spain

AQUARAMA here we come! After getting the washing on at 8am and on the line by 9am we were all set to get our waterpark on! It was a 30 min walk from the campsite, so by the time arrived we were all hot and ready to get straight to it. After a small discussion on to best attack the slides it was decided that left to right would be the easiest way, and to then just go crazy once we had sampled each one. The first slide required a figure 8 shaped donut and 2 people. It was a slight let down but the second slide definitely made up for. It too required the same figure 8 donut and 2 people. The best thing about this one was that once you were assisted into the opening of the slide by the lifeguard it went pitch black and you were unable to see what direction you would flung next. From there we went on the twister, and then the flying fox, and then the Kamakaze. We then had a swim and some lunch and did it all over again. Jo won the award for best dismount from the flying fox but unfortunately I did not have the camera out for this effort. She managed to nearly do a complete back flip as she flung her legs up over here head from there flinging her body around to make her knee and shins hit the water first. She claims it was by accident but it was still very impressive and even the life guards had a decent laugh, I think one may have even clapped.
We slipped and slid for another few hours until it was early evening. The park had ride similar to the tower of terror but not nearly as big. As Jo and Jake are big scardy cats Aims and I decide that we were going to get our money’s worth from this place.
It seemed like such a good idea until Aims was all strapped in, she then realised she was actually terrified of heights. She turned to me and said something along the lines of, “I think I’ve made a mistake”, and “If I had the choice to get off now I would”. But it was all too late for that. The count down had begun and it was all about to happen. We were flung into the air and then bounced around like a tea bag for a good 2 mins. Once we got off Amy was fine again and strut around glad that she had done....the funniest part though was her adrenaline was so high that her hands wouldn’t stop shaking!
All in all it was a great day, good suggestion Jake, maybe we will have to do it again in Antibes!

Aquarama - Benicassim, Spain

We drove through Valencia and Jake was less than impressed with the setup of Spanish roundabouts! 5 lanes leading into the roundabout....then no lanes in the roundabout.....then 5 lanes again on the otherside. We made it through unscathed and were happy to see the back of Valencia and it’s stench! As we exited Valencia, Jake noticed a huge poster for a waterpark that was on our course. This was about the 8th time he had got overly excited about one of these ads and shouted that he thought it would not be a bad idea to go to one of these parks (everyone that knows Jake can insert your own interpretation of him getting excited about the waterpark cause I just don’t think I could do it justice, plus trying to keep this blog PG). So we looked up in the campervan book we have (Thanks Chris and Sandi!) and found a campsite in Benicassim which was really close to the waterpark. The arrived at the park at 6ish and this campsite was shmik! All the facilties were great and really clean, there was also a supermarket about 2 mins away. We decided that although we had not planned to stay we would do the waterpark the following day, get some washing done and then hit the road for Barcelona a day earlier skipping Sitges. This campsite had pretty good internet so we checked the waterpark out and decided that we would get there when it opened and spend the entire day there. I’m not 100% sure but I think Jake may have been to excited to sleep that night.

Oliva Beach, Spain

We were back on the road at 8am and planned to be in Oliva by lunch time to work out our next port of call for another night of free camping. Oliva was another recommendation from the free camping website that we had been using. We found a nice little beach and went for a swim and chilled on the beach for a few hours but there really wasn’t any place that was suitable to camp. We hit the road again at about 1pm bound up the coast, but unsure of a destination.

Bolnuevo Beach, Spain

We have been using a website that we found that gives good advice on places to free camp in most countries in the EU. So far it had been great, but Puerto De Mazarron was not a good recommendation. To be fair we did get there at 2am and when we headed to the place they said the directions they gave weren’t great. We ended up driving around the towns narrow little back streets for 10 minutes, be followed by the Polica. We finally managed to get back onto a main street and decided to head to a beach outside of town. We turned the first corner on our way out of town and there was a Polica car parked on the side of the road and waved us down to stop. Luckily they spoke english and we had all the necessary paperwork to keep them happy. I think I slightly confused the guy cause the van is registered in Jake’s name who was sitting in the back seat, then when he asked for passport and driver’s licence he gave me strange look because I have a UK drivers licence and a AUS passport....he definitely made me sweat but after double checking everything we were free to go. He made a joke reminding me to drive on the right hand side of the road... We all laughed nervously and drove off. We finally found a decent spot to camp with a couple of other camper vans along side us facing what we hoped was a beach. It was then straight to bed but after the excitement of the night I doubt any one went straight to sleep.....well maybe except for Jo.

The beach that we had found to make the previous night was called Bolnuevo Beach. The water was really nice and was starting to get a bit warmer compared to the previous few spots. Straight across from were we had parked was a strange rock formation, not sure what it was as the sign was in Spanish, but I will google sometime soon. Feel free to do it yourself and let me know.

Nerja, Spain (By Day)

After getting up relatively early we went for a walk into the town again to have a look at the beach. There were 2 or 3 small beaches in the town itself but we decided to walk to the bigger one just outside the town. It was a stoney beach, but really nice. The water was freezing but that too was not that bad seeing it was so hot. We made the decision to stay at the beach for the day and head off to the next spot at 6pm...this may not have been our best decision as you will discover shortly, but at the time it was nice to just chill at the beach. I bought a beach rugby ball and when playing with the in the water definitely got some funny looks from the locals, not being used to seeing a ball that wasn’t round that you kicked rather than passed.
We grabbed some lunch from the supermarket at the beach and a couple of 1 litre beers! We swam, ate, drank, slept, tanned and passed the footy around till about 5pm. Reluctantly we packed up our gear and headed back to the van to make our way to the next spot....Puerto De Mazarron.

Nerja, Spain (By Night)

Today we had a smallish sleep in and hit the road around 11am. We drove most of the day and arrived in Nerja just before sunset. This was a last minute decission, all I had read was it had some really nice beaches. We got there about 8pm, Aims and I went for a walk to find a bathroom while Jo and Jake started to get the dinner ready. It was Sunday night so we really didn’t expected anything to be open. The place we found to park was a huge dirt car park but it was full of cars and campers. Aims and I followed the direction of all the people and found ourselves in a busy little coastal town centre. There were people everywhere and most of them were speaking English. There were hundreds of restaurants, bars, horse drawn carts for the tourists and about 20 people doing portraits of tourists in the square. We decided to call the other 2 and get them down to have a look sooner rather than later as we did not know what time it may close. After a little bit confusion we finally met up and it was a unanimous decision to find a restaurant for beers and Paella! The pasta would have to wait another night.
The restaurant was a little touristy but a little way away from the main square so not too bad. The Paella was fantastic! Probably could have eaten another 2 pans worth. We then retired to the van at about midnight and all went to sleep very satisfied.

Gibraltar

8am was the proposed departure time and we only ran late by 10 mins which was a record for the team. The campsite was about 8kms out of town along the road but only about 5kms along the beach so we decided to walk to Tarifa town centre to get the bus in to Gibraltar. It was a clear morning on the beach, no wind like the day before. All was going well till we got about 4/5 of the way to Tarifa. We were met by a 30 metre wide channel that was probably 1.5 metres at it’s deepest. We sat on the sand for a bit and waited. Jake went out and checked the depth but it was just a little too deep as we needed to wear these clothes for the rest of the day so we couldn’t get them too wet. Luckily the tide was on our side so after about 45 mins waiting we were able to cross. We continued to Tarifa and when we got there the bus station had no one tending it so we had no idea where to go. We walk to the information centre got the bus timetable, and as it was still nearly 2 hours before the first bus to Gibraltar we decided to have a wonder around the old town of Tarifa.
It wasn’t really very interesting...the only interesting part was that you could catch a ferry to Morocco in 50 mins. And the reason it was called Tarifa was because it was the first place to charge a fee on the boats in the port.
We finally got our bus and arrived in Gibraltar at 1pm. It was a very strange place, like all of a sudden being back in London. As it is stilled ruled by Great Britian, they are on the £. And they have all the same shops, even Morrisons (a supermarket in London)!
The reason we left so early that morning was in the hope that we might find a pub that was showing the Wallabies game....unfortunately as the bus was so late we missed the game, which sucked because there were pubs that did show it. Oh well, next time.
We sat and had a drink and our pre made sandwiches (got to love cost cutting). After studying the map we went exploring. We wondered through the centre of the town, and caught the cable car to the top. From there the view was spectacular. Jake and Aims were not so keen on it but I think they still enjoyed the sights. We then began the walk back down the rock. First stop was the monkeys, cute but disgusting at the same time.
We then went into St Michael’s cave, the Romans believed this cave to be bottomless. They now use it for concerts. From here we had a 2 km walk to the other end of the rock to see the tunnels of the great siege which happened in 1782 and then again over the years, most recently by the british in WWII.
From there it was a short walk back down the hill and then back into Spain to catch the bus back to Tarifa. We walked to the supermarket just in time to grab dinner and then made it back to camp by about 9.30pm. Over all we probably walked a total of 12kms that day so we were all very tired. After a nice dinner it was bed time. Don’t actually remember hitting the pillow.

Oh and for those people that were wondering the Wallabies Won! Bring the All Blacks!

Tarifa, Spain

We were back on the road by 9am with a 3 hour drive to our next destination. Tarifa. Known for its great beach and lots of wind. We passed about 500 wind farms on the way to the campsite. Once we set up camp for the next 2 day we went for a walk along the beach and it was not hard to see why 1000’s of people flock to Tarifa in the peak seasons to windsurf and kitesurf. Once back at the campsite, and seeing no one else in the water at the beach besides the kitesurfer’s we decided the pool was the safer option.
After a swim and BBQ we hit the hay for an early rise the next morning.