After more heavy rain during the night we woke to a fresh, clear day – ready for moving on to Calpe.

The journey was short but followed windy, narrow roads with beautiful scenery arriving at Camping Estrella Polar (9 euros per night GPS n.38,6579 e.0,0776967) just before mid-day to set up in our wooded location looking out into the mountains.  The Aire is slightly different to the others in Calpe as it is just outside town and err’s towards nature rather than being one of the huge sites for 100+ motorhomes on concrete pitches. Part of it is still under construction and the rest is a little higgledy piggledy…. or perhaps I should just say rough and ready! It suited us as it was a lovely location and had fantastic views but it had more than its fair share of tiger mosquitoes, which as everyone knows aren’t my best friend!

From the motorhome we walked down to the first beach and decided to climb to the summit of Penon de Ifach, which surprised us in its complexity.  Watching the people who were going up we would have thought it would be straight forward but there were parts that were more complicated than expected and I am still not sure how the Russian family who were on their way up to the summit when we were coming down ever got down as the mother was hugging the rock and looked like she was suffering from Vertigo.

Despite being very built up the views were spectacular from the top and it was well worth the walk, definately wear decent shoes and I don’t recommend going to summit if you suffer from Vertigo!

After a rough nights sleep fighting off the mosquitoes – seriously we must have killed at least ten in the night and they were probably only half of  those that were in the motorhome – I set off for a run along the two beaches. I hadn’t realized quite how hilly it was and arrived back to the motorhome a little more red faced than normal!

As we hadn’t been to Calpe before but had heard so much about it we set off to explore the town and the other Aires as we had heard that quite a few had recently opened. There are four open and one more coming at the beginning of November and you can’t not be impressed by what the company who owns the most recent Aire (and the one due to open in a week or so) has done – it appears very Germanic … i.e. clean, solid and excellent facilities however we understand they are apparently both owned by Italians….rumours say, Mafia ….

The rest of the town reflected the clientele – Northern Europeans.  Therefore the shops were a different level – and price.  The Old town was typical white wash houses in a pretty quarter with lots of little restaurants and bars looking out over the town and to sea.  It is easy to see that the local council has done its best to encourage foreigners to visit the area – it was buzzing with tourism – in a nice way, albeit a little too busy for us.

On Wednesday we left Calpe and headed 50km south to San Juan Playa, just north of Alicante.  This time stopping at Area 7 (13 euros per night GPS n.38,4049 w0,409628) for a few nights to catch up with Michel and Teresa before we get to Campello Beach.  The Aire is also new, only having been open for 5 months and it is run by a lovely couple who go out of their way to help anyone and everyone …. their showers and toilets are also hotel quality!!

We ended up cooking for Michel and Teresa on Wednesday and the Bakewell came out perfectly – although I added a second egg by mistake which may have helped.

We have done quite a bit of cooking over the last few days so not only will you find the Bakewell recipe under the ‘Recipe’ tab at the top of the page but also focaccia, bread rolls, Spiced Onion Chutney (we had run out and they don’t do chutney over here so I thought I’d try turning my hand to it) and Tzatsiki.

Since being at the new Area we have checked out our neighbourhood and despite it being a nice,  it is slightly further from the places we go to regularly to meet up with friends and doesn’t have any bars/restaurants around it to feed Keith’s football addiction.  We have therefore decided that El Campello Beach works out better for us so we are moving back over there tomorrow – only time will tell whether it is the correct decision!