Once out of Tortosa we drove up toward the Pyrenees looking for somewhere cooler to sleep. But the heat kept coming ..at one point it was reading 41°. It was brutal - I was spraying Dr Fred with water and eventually we decided enough was enough and we stopped at a carpark suggested by searchforsites. It was an interesting place, deep in a gorge - completely empty of people or cars, but full of graffitti... it made us uneasy - it felt like a local youth hang out area - gut instinct? We'll never know - in spite ofthe glorious huge birds soaring across the gorge we left and moved on, eventually stopping at a clean, not too busy, Aire about 40k's up the road.
We were hot, tired and hungry. It was good to stop. We sat up late as we wanted to keep the van open as much as possible... we couldnt sleep on an Aire with the doors open and we were still registering 30°+ in the van - but sleep was advancing so we battened down the hatches and had a very restless night.... to be perfectly honest we were fed up... it was a bit of a come down from a great few days with friends a superb eclipse and now we have to make our own Greek salad!!!
In the morning we both felt better. I found a potential campsite in the mountains and rang them....we really needed to get cool qnd start planning what next. It felt like our original plan of travelling to Italy was just too far given the hot weather situation.
The countryside was very pretty edpecially with the mountains... much greener as we headed north - the small towns and villages we passed through were busy and full of higgly piggly buildings. The roads got windier and steeper.
We drove up a seriously steep narrow- quite frankly scary road to the camping Graus. Its a great site - not very big and really friendly. Theres a river/stream and cool temperatures🤩🤩 we setup and just breathed huge sighs of relief... cool air... I had a shower and even turned the hot water up- it was like a different world.
We chatted to some french people who had been there a few days - they didnt see the eclipse it was too cloudy - they didn't seem bothered.
After a late tea we went for a walk up the valley to the dam. Someone had left a fairly intact jaw bone of a wild boar on the signpost.
Dr Fred wouldn't let me bring it home... to be fair there was still quite a bit of rotting flesh involved so it would have smelled - 🙁lost opportunity🙁 it did give the dark and gloomy entrance to the woods quite a gothic witchy vibe though🤣.
Nice wander but we couldnt get on the dam it was all padlocked off. Dr Fred carried on up the track... I went back to make sure I couldn't sneak the boar bones in - not an option.
We decided to stop a couple of days... recover from heat exhaustion and plan a bit more for our next move. Just not sure what to do....
The camping is very pretty, well looked after, totally surrounded by soaring forested mountains. There were not so many flies and seem to be less mozzies... loads of butterflies... Thunderstorms were forcasted for the evening but they never arrived. The next day dawned sunny and hot and more thunder storms were forcast for lunch time - the skies darkened... brightened.... turned blue, purple and finally late afternoon a deep steely grey and the rain deluged.... thunder rolled around the mountains, lightening flashed...(who needs wild boar skulls for gothic effect now🤣)
The rain bounced off the van - huge rain almost filled the washing up bowl- it was strangely cathartic - one extreme to another - the world is doomed and we are spectators....
I checked out the UK news... wildfire warnings on mobile phones... Mr Burnham still offering piecemeal distractions while agreeing to drill, bomb, appease Trump etc.. racism thrives, standards are still double - thank goodness for the little light relief nature can offer.
We decided to eat in the site restaurant- we had to book... It was an ok meal...outside the rain had made the evening cool but inside the restaurant it was really warm, it was very busy which made it noisy as well as hot... we escaped but it was actually too chilly to sit outside!!!
We went back to the van and had a nightcap while laid in bed deciding to check weather and head for northern Italy.
Dr Fred got up at the crack of sparrows to walk to Pic de la Serra de Causes. Via Noarre. He cant bear to leave the mountains without an explore..... it was a bigger hike than he had reckoned on so we booked a third night before heading off into the wilds of Andorra.
I can completely sympathise with your post eclipse blues, I'd be no good in that heat. Glad you found somewhere cooler in the end.
ReplyDeleteHow very unreasonable of Dr Fred not to let you scavenge a foetid boar's jawbone, can't see there'd have been any issue letting that fester in the van in the temperatures you're experiencing :D
I hope you both regain your travel mojo, will be very jealous if you tick Andorra off the list (somewhere we haven't been to yet). Look forward to hearing about your onwards plans.
Stay cool (it's quite overcast here today but still humid), xC