15th April

15th April.
Mijas Costa to Tarifa.

Arrival in Tarifa 45171 km.

I slept in the van on a hill next to where Rab and Carol are living. It wasn't the most ideal of spots to be sleeping in the van, but after I'd had a few pints beforehand, it did the trick. It also saved 15e which appeals to my scabby nature!

I knocked up at their apartment around 11am and a decision was made to head down to Benalmadena in their car after the dogs had been walked. Benalmadena and Fuengirola are not my idea of fun places to be. Just your typical package holiday destinations with too many Brits for my liking (i.e. the Union Jack shorts wearing type). The marina at Benalmadena however, is nice and we had a wander around there for a while checking out the nice yachts and motor launches. Too much money some people have.....

I managed to get my neck badly sunburned. I could feel it happening and stupidly hadn't put on any sunblock in the morning. Once back at Rab and Carol's I got the clippers into action on Peter's hair and gave him a trim of sorts! God only knows what his pals in school will say tomorrow!

I headed off around 6pm for Tarifa. The road was busy for the first 20km or so and then the traffic eased off a bit. It seems that the whole stretch from Malaga down past Marbella is just wall to wall with people, as if they have all decided that's the place to be. It's not a place I'd particularly want to live, but up where they're staying is fairly quiet and all residential, being a good bit back from the sea front areas.

A glorious evening for driving. As I approached Gibraltar, I had a notion of stopping off for the night in La Linea de la Concepcion which is just across the border, but on getting in to the town, I had a major panic on, wondering a) If I could find some place to park up and b) Would I ever be able to get back out of the crazy narrow one way streets, so I decided to give it a miss. I hadn't heard great reports about Gib anyway; that basically it was like little England. I did stop and take a couple of photos from a viewpoint on the approach to the rock and it looks stunning.
I pressed on to Tarifa and ended up in the town and down at the port. Nice enough town but getting a bit late for looking around and I needed to find a campsite as light was starting to fade. I carried on back out on the N340 and stopped at Camping Rio Jara which looked fine in the fading light. I got checked in and hooked up and sorted for the night. Had top open the windows and vents as it was pretty warm in the van from the drive down.