16th April

16th April.
Tarifa to Sevilla
45171 Km leaving Tarifa45457 km arrival at Dos Hermanos outskirts of Sevilla.
After yesterday's glorious weather, I left the bedroom windows open with the flyscreens down last night. The campsite was very quiet, although having arrived late (dusk), I hadn't had a chance to have much of a look around. I slept well, waking with the light of day as I seem to have grown accustomed to on this trip. I took a quick snoop around the campsite and sorted a few small tasks that needed doing before heading off around half 11. I had swithered about maybe staying on another night but felt that I wanted to give Sevilla and Cordoba both 2 nights each to do them justice.

Just along the road from Rio Jara camping, there is a picninc area where I pulled off the road and had a wander down to the beach. It was very blowy, but a gorgeous sandy, empty beach lay there, with hazy views across to Africa, and a few ships out in the straits.

I'd forgotten to empty the grey water tank, so I resorted to the trick of opening the dump valve slightly and letting it trickle out on the journey ahead. The road from Tarifa to Medina sedonia is National road, single carriageway and quite scenic. The landscape changed from coastal mountains to climb into the hilltop town of Medina Sedonia and runble back down the hill where once joining the Sevilla Autovia, the scenery changed to small rolling hills. The journey as far as Sevilla was uneventful. The only blip up to that point had been a car driver trying to squeeze past on my inside as I negotiated my way into a filling station for diesel and she hadn't realised the amount that Hermione's back end swings out by and she got a bit of a fright!

Nearing Sevilla, I'd stopped at the roadside to check the camperstop guide directions for the campsite. The one that was closest to the city was out at the airport, but the directions weren't very clear and I managed to get a bit lost and that swallowed up a bit of time trying to find it. When I finally did find it, it was closed. Looks like it's shut for good, although maybe that's a good thing, as it's wedged between the Autovia on one side and the airport on the other.....I checked the guide book and the next nearest site was in a town called Dos Hermanas, slightly to the south of Sevilla. Fortunately I had an actual address for this site that Maisy the sat nav accepted and she brought us right to the front gate.

There's something that registers in the head when you've been driving a certain vehicle for a while, and that's that you learn to know when it sounds normal and when it doesn't. Just outside Dos Hermanas I'd got the feeling that the engine note sounded lower and louder. Once I'd pulled on to the camp site<>

The campsite itself is a bit strange. Initially it looked just like a motel and I was wondering where the camping part was, but the wee man directed me down past the apartments and in behind there is a camping area laid out in what looks like the grounds of a grand old Spanish house. The pitches are under really old, tall palm trees and in amongst an old orange grove. It's nice and shady, not too noisy, apart from the odd train going past behind us and it seems a shame to see the old house lying empty and getting a bit shabby. It looks like it would make a really nice renovation project.

So, I've had a home cooked dinner of Chilli con carne, rice and tortilla chips which was rather tasty even if I do say so myself and all I need to find out is how I can get in to Sevilla. I'd hoped that someone on site might be English speaking; alas no..... all Spanish and French plated vans on site, and the wee man in reception gave me no inclination as to him maybe speaking English, so I shall have to go and suss things out. I think I'm gonna just chill for the evening and head in to the city tomorrow morning and spend the day there. I'm hoping there'll be a bus or a train in...... Spending today: 51e diesel.